A speciAl 48-pAge tribute ColdType writing worth reading ISSUE 96 Photo: Joyce Ravid

danny schechter The news DissecTor 1942-2015 2 Remembering Danny Schechter

Go Higher At the end of a year there’s a sigh welling from within What was done, undone? How have we changed? Save the ravages of age? When you see too much, You think you know too much My challenge: Can I feel more Think less? What next to work for And become Open to change within? Is the die cast? Has the journey become The destination? Tick, tick, tick… Is it over before it’s over? I feel estranged in two countries with only dreams to remember A moment for reflection erupts Staring off, I stare within There is a pause A silence too As days grown shorter And nights darker Only to say, unexpectedly Light smiled into my world and helped me Go higher

Danny Schechter 31 December 2012

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News Dissector at work, WBCN. Hamba Kahle, Comrade By Tony Sutton, ColdType editor

’ve worked on many projects with Danny than reading his words, I just couldn’t start Schechter during the past 12 years, producing editing until . . . well, you know when. seven of his books and publishing his essays Sadly, work on Topic is now under way, and Iand columns in ColdType. However, unlike ev- it’s like everything Danny and I have worked erything before, this special edition of ColdType on before: precise, meticulous, funny, serious. is one I’ve been dreading over the too-short six Indispensable. Topic of Cancer will initially be months since he told me he had cancer. produced as an ebook at ColdType.net, while I spluttered several platitudes of disbelief awaiting a publisher for the printed paper- when he told me of his illness, bur he softly back version. Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy confirmed the diagnosis before saying we had this 48-page souvenir, packed with loving another book to publish together, one he’d memories from colleagues and friends, begin- already titled – Topic Of Cancer – a journal of ning with a wonderful essay from his daugh- his struggle with his illness. ter, Sarah. The first pages of the manuscript arrived Many thanks to everyone who contributed in my in-box a couple of weeks later, followed to this special tribute. Danny has been, and by additions every week or so. Each time we will always be, a source of inspiration and a spoke, he asked what I thought of his writ- fine example to us all. ing and how the book was progressing. Fine, Hamba Kahle, Comrade. As the tears dry, I’d reply, not wanting him to know that, other our memories will blossom. l

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Their first of many adventures. Cape Cod 1977. My father. Our Hero Sarah Schechter pays tribute to the father she shared with the world

anny Schechter had many job titles, one is equal and everyone deserves respect. He from “The News Dissector” to Hu- showed me that one man can make a differ- man Rights Activist, from Journalist ence on multiple continents. Not only is there Dto Filmmaker, from Media Critic to always time to help a person in need, it is our Mentor, but I am the only one lucky enough to responsibility to help. It is easy to do if you know him by the most important title he ever just try. held, Dad. He always made sure I knew it, even It wasn’t always easy sharing my dad with as he juggled five lifetime’s worth of work. He the world. I remember one summer vacation made it seem easy. on Cape Cod coincided with the Iran Contra There are wonderful words throughout this Hearings. He dragged a TV to a window over- issue which will give you a taste (just a taste!) looking the deck and spent every day glued of his genius, the reach of his work, and the to the TV. He thought if he was outside, it difference he made in the world. I don’t need counted as vacation. My childhood was spent to rehash that. What I can uniquely testify to at protests, in offices, at shoots, at events, and is what he was like as a father. He was incred- holding his hand through various airports. ible. He loved me so deeply and clearly. I am I was surrounded by ANC exiles, musicians, so blessed to have him as my first and most filmmakers, political leaders, journalists, and important teacher. He taught me that every- the like. There were always PILES of newspa-

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Above: The family smile. Below: Danny recruited Sarah to help with interviews at an early age.

pers, always people to be met, always movies to see, things to do. He was electric and alive every minute. He once took me on assignment with him to a Na- vajo reservation for a 20/20 story. He always wanted me to understand how big the world was. I just remember how he talked his way out of a ticket for driving 88 miles an hour through the desert. It is particularly impres- sive because I was sitting next to him repeat- edly saying “Dad! 88 miles?” I loved the Red Sox so he managed to get one ticket to the 1986 world series through a friend. He sat me in my seat and waited just outside the gate to make sure I was okay. He always found a way. I would get emails and calls from him from all over the world. I couldn’t even keep up. “With love from the Congo...” “in Chicago...” “back in

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Above: New Hampshire, February 1983 Photo by Jerry Bernt. Below: Always comfortable in his arms, 1976

South Africa...” he was everywhere. I hope he still is. One year I was the first to wish him a happy birthday, He wrote back, “You were the first. And always are.” Loving him was easy. He was hilarious. He could always make me laugh and make me think. I have heard many sto- ries about his temper but I never saw that. When I was 12 and had to do a school report on an important woman in history, he suggested Tina Turner. Of course I did it. In high school I had to a research report on American History, most kids picked presidents. I picked Abbie Hoffman. What can I say? I am proudly my father’s daughter. He was so incredibly supportive and loving and al- ways made sure I knew how proud he was of me. I did the same. It was easy with him. A few other things you should know. He was an incredible dancer. He loved music. He loved Mel Brooks. He loved the show Luther.

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At Barbara Kopple’s House, NY 1986 or 1987. Liberal T-Shirts are a family uniform

He took me with him into the voting booth to comes to my dad. He was always busy being vote for Jesse Jackson. He would tuck me in born. Shortly before his death (which came at night and clean between my toes. He could way too quickly . . . I guess he was never one not throw anything out. We didn’t really know for long goodbyes as he always had some- how to enjoy “the country” so we would go where else to be), he said, “I don’t know how to the mall and watch three movies in a row. much time I have.” I said, “Dad, no one does.” We would only pay for one. He was cheap. He He took a deep breath and said, “Yeah. And loved his friends. He loved Mandela. He made I guess 72 years is a long time and I certainly sure my initials were SDS. He was always try- lived it to the max.” We laughed. Nothing could ing to help a former intern. He was proud of have been more true. He insisted on bringing being from the Bronx. He was ALWAYS that his computer to the hospital because he had energetic and busy. two articles to finish. Shortly after he died I I can’t believe he is gone. I was lucky enough found out he had completed not one, but two to hold his hand while he died and tell him more books . . . while he was fighting cancer. over and over how much I loved him, how Of the many things to learn from my dad, one many people loved him, and what a difference irrefutable lesson is there are absolutely no ex- he made in the world. It was easy to say this. cuses for not DOING and therefore being born. Bob Dylan said, “He not busy being born He really made it look easy. is busy dying.” That is just not true when it Living without him. Now that is hard. l

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 8 Remembering Danny Schechter To Danny, as always, Rory O’Connor Danny Schechter’s long-time business partner and friend, has a fascinating story that spans more than 30 years

y the time we met, in the end part of petition, the Real Paper. I began freelancing for “The Sixties” that was actually the mid- both while driving a taxi to pay most of the rent. Seventies, Danny Schechter was already After two and half long years, the Real Paper fi- Ba local legend as “The News Dissector” nally hired me as a reporter and news editor, on WBCN, then one of the most powerful and and I gratefully left one hack business behind influential radio stations in New England. Like to join another. literally hundreds of thousands of other Baby My first memories of time spent with Danny Boomers, I had come to Massachusetts to at- involve various reporting expeditions. Often he tend university – as well as to join the growing and I were among the only journalists in at- youth “counter-culture” in such far-flung out- tendance, along with Sidney Blumenthal, (with posts as Boston/Cambridge and San Francisco/ whom I had shared a Phoenix freelance desk Berkeley. “Underground” FM stations like ‘BCN and who became, decades later, a senior adviser and its West Coast counterpart KSAN provided to President Clinton.) The first Danny sighting the soundtracks to our lives – along with news – at a 1976 appearance at a local university by and views we couldn’t find elsewhere, all deliv- ex-CIA head William Colby – is still etched in ered in a new way to a new audience desperate mind. After finishing his speech, Colby called for alternatives to the established, straight me- for questions. Danny’s hand immediately shot dia. Danny’s distinctive on-air style of deliver- up. Apparently mistaking the scruffy Schechter ing news – a unique blend of popular music, for a student, Colby called on him first. actualities, reports and commentary whipped Danny’s “question” to Colby concerned the into a seamless whole – made for a tasty spoon- Chilean folksinger Victor Jara, who had been ful of sugar that helped the often bleak news go arrested, tortured and shot dead shortly after a down in an entertaining, informative and yes, CIA-backed coup on September 11, 1973. Instead most delightful way. It was serious stuff about of asking anything, however, Danny turned, weighty matters of war and peace, racism and faced the audience, and delivered his own lec- nukes, which directly affected our lives. It was ture speech – a harangue, really – about Jara’s also great fun. life and death. He concluded by turning back to I graduated in 1972 and immediately set out Colby and bluntly accusing the now-apoplectic to become a card-carrying member of the “al- super spook of complicity in the affair. Some- ternative press.” In addition to WBCN, the area how he also managed to squeeze in time to also boasted two excellent weekly newspapers, persuade a photographer to snap a still of him the Boston-based, arts-oriented Phoenix and its and Blumenthal with Colby in the background, more progressive and political Cambridge com- and signed it, “To Sid, as always, Bill Colby.” As

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of his remarks. Discouraged, we left the press gaggle waiting at the front and migrated in- stead to the back door, where a group of very tan Secret Service agents were clustered, just back from guarding Kissinger during a diplomatic visit to Jamaica. As huge fans of Bob Marley and all things reggae-related, Danny and I had been to the island several times, and we began to chat with the agents about their stay. Suddenly Kissinger – anx- “To Sid, as always, Bill Colby,” wrote Danny at the top of Sidney ious as ever to avoid the press Blumenthall’s photograph. gathered at the front – popped out the back door just three feet Blumenthal notes, “Danny may have been de- from us. I was speechless, an affliction to which scended from a lineage of Harpo Marx and Karl Danny was always immune. He instantly spread Marx.” his arms wide and bellowed in a welcoming I remember reacting with a mixture of voice, “Doctor Kissinger!” To my amazement, amusement and trepidation at Danny’s bold- Kissinger then bear-hugged Danny, whom he ness. Still a rookie reporter, I frankly hadn’t real- apparently had mistaken for an ardent fan. ized that you could stand up in public and say While still holding Dr. K in his arms, Danny or do those kind of things – at least not without asked, “Sir, tell me – do you have any regrets?” being thrown out or perhaps arrested! It was a Puzzled, Kissinger responded quizzically, bracing early lesson in “speaking truth to pow- “Regrets? For vat?” er,” as the hoary expression goes. Another early “Chile?” Danny responded. Kissinger, final- joint encounter with an unindicted war crimi- ly realizing what was happening, looked over nal provided a further education in “participa- Danny’s shoulder for a way out – directly at me. tory journalism,” as Schechter dubbed it. “Vietnam?” I asked with a smile. Henry Kissinger, already the recipient of the Kissinger quickly withdrew from Danny’s 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, was chosen to receive embrace. “Regrets? From someone as culpable yet another “peace medal” from something as I?” he responded with his own surly smile, called the World Affairs Council. Naturally we hugged Danny again and then whispered in his found the notion of his being further lauded for ear, “You’re such a sveet boy!” before the Secret his efforts in fostering “peace” to be outrageous Service whisked him away. and alarming, and we resolved to attend the Coda: unbeknownst to anyone but me, Dan- event in hopes of confronting Dr. K. ny was carrying a tape recorder in his pocket and Armed with press passes, we managed to had turned it on and miked himself and before make it all the way to the front door of the room we saw Kissinger. The whole interchange had where Kissinger was speaking. But given the been recorded. We immediately called WBCN tenor of the times, security was extremely tight, and interrupted DJ Charles Laquidara’s morning and along with other members of the Fourth Es- show with an “exclusive interview” with Henry tate, we were unable to enter or even hear any Kissinger . . .

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Like many of our crowd, Danny initially “got Our earliest broadcast efforts came as pro- into the media” because he wanted to do some- ducers and on-air reporters for a nightly news thing about the problems of the world. “It was program on WGBH-TV, one of public televi- only later,” he would joke, “That I learned the sion’s flagship stations. One of the first- seg media was one of the problems of the world!” ments Danny produced there involved a grue- He was always supportive of other journalists some gangland-style execution of five at a pub and eager to act in solidarity with them. Al- in downtown Boston. As a result of his report- though we in the alternative press were often ing about the massacre, and despite his inexpe- hamstrung by lack of access, funding and other rience, a local attorney hired Danny to run a TV important reporting needs, we were also blessed chat show – the Joe Oteri Show - and an entirely with great freedom to choose what to cover and new career was launched. how to cover it. No longer a radio newscaster but now a tele- Our friends and colleagues in the straight vision show-runner, Danny was later recruited press – what would years later come to be known by WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston, to as the “mainstream” or “corporate” media – create a raucous, freeform, low budget, multi- were not so lucky, and Danny was instrumen- hour live late night program called Five All Night tal in reaching out and trying to form bridges Live All Night, beginning in March 1980. Despite among the media workers in both camps. One its less than-princely budget of $400 per show, early effort was dubbed the “Shanghai Press and with only one camera and microphone, the Club.” Every week we would convene with program became an unlikely hit, as Schechter other working journalists at a cavernous Chi- used his connections and clout to convince the nese restaurant near Harvard Square to discuss likes of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Allen issues and concerns in both the alternative and Ginsberg and Howard Zinn to appear, along mainstream press and to support one another with top local and visiting rock bands that had as fellow workers in the media minefield. just finished concerts and were still looking for Meanwhile the counter-culture was begin- something to do at 2 am. ning to rise from the underground, driven as Alas, Danny’s run as a ‘CVB show-runner was much by music, film and other popular art short-lived. As the program’s Wikipedia page forms as by politics. Pop music in particular was notes, “A few weeks into the show’s run, as the at the core of what mattered to the audiences of closing credits rolled, Boston band Human Sex- both WBCN and the Real Paper, and Danny and ual Response performed their song ‘Butt Fuck’ I specialized in trying to merge coverage of the accompanied by a nude female dancer. The two different but complementary impulses into song aired uncensored, due to the fact that the a seamless whole. Soon we began co-writing a director was preoccupied with the presence of column called “News You Can Use” for Rock the nude woman, and the station received some Around the World, a monthly publication about complaints the next day.” Danny later told me the music’s growing global stature. As Bob Mar- that three of the five “complaints” were from ley became the first Third World superstar, we viewers who wanted to see more – but the other began to glimpse the beginnings of a new, more two were from people who vowed not to rest international world, as first music, then film until the FCC lifted the station’s license. In any and soon other cultural products became in- event, he was fired on June 13, 1980, after just creasingly globalized. We wondered if television, four months, due to what both sides agreed to a medium in which Danny and I had both just call “irreversible philosophical differences.” begun to work, might soon follow. Maybe, we The firing proved fortuitous, however; it dreamed, it would soon be time for the world’s meant that Danny was unemployed when he first global television program. received a call from Atlanta asking if he would

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which shared locally produced segments and then “bicycled” or shared them among editions for use in several markets. Our plan was to do much the same, only with national editions of a global program, which would appear in markets all over the world. From CNN, Danny moved up the news food chain to a prime perch as a producer at ABC News’ 20/20 program, where he won two National News Emmys and a slew of other awards. The consummate outsider had somehow become an insider – but that didn’t change his style or substance much. Once again, he mixed hard news and politics with cutting edge cul- tural reportage on subjects such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and a then-little known musical style known as rap, or hip-hop. Meanwhile, back in Boston, I felt increasingly like the prover- bial big fish in a small pond. Like Schechter and O’Connor try to look respectable and global in a Danny, I had become a show-run- 1992 Globalvision publicity still ner, briefly at the nightly news program we had started with at move there to produce a nightly version of The WGBH, and then as creator and executive pro- Freeman Report, a Nightline-like program for a ducer of the hyper-local Neighborhood Net- then-nascent cable news startup called CNN. work News on Boston cable. I was also writing Soon I began receiving daily telephone calls regularly for Boston magazine and national pub- from all over America, as Danny took the show lications such as Rolling Stone and the Atlantic, on the road, originated each night’s cablecast finishing a book, and squeezing in regular, Dis- from a different city, while keeping up on the sector-inspired ‘rock-commentaries” on WBCN. Boston scene. Ever-energetic and driven beyond Still, I couldn’t escape the feeling that even as I most human capacity, he supplemented this aged, most of the population somehow seemed grueling schedule with regular weekend visits to remain between 18 and 24 years old. It was back ‘home,’ so we still managed to stay in close time to return home to my native New York. Af- touch and begin work on detailed plans to one ter all, if you can make it there . . day launch a global news-and-views magazine By the time I moved back in the mid-Eight- program. We modeled what we simply called ies, Danny was in full swing at ABC. In addition The Global Show in part after Evening Maga- to producing twice as many segments as his zine, a successful national format pioneered counterparts at 20/20, he was also running a by Westinghouse (Group W) Broadcasting, major anti-apartheid effort out of his crammed

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office cubicle on West 66th Street. He was work- tion of ‘global television.’ ing with a group called Artists United Against Almost immediately, we changed course. Apartheid, led by Bruce Springsteen sideman Launching the “world’s first global show,” it Steven Van Zandt. When Van Zandt suggested turned out, was a daunting venture, especially writing a song about Sun City, a whites-only re- for a new production company with no cameras, sort that they thought should be boycotted by little capital and a borrowed office in a Soho loft. entertainers, Danny suggested turning the song As we continued to formulate global plans, we into a different kind of We Are the World, or as were approached by a group of producers and he explained, “a song about change not char- filmmakers from South Africa who had compel- ity, freedom not famine.” Eventually, they per- ling footage of the struggle against apartheid in suaded a wide array of top artists to participate, their country. They were unable to get their sto- including Springsteen, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, ry told on American television; moreover, the Ringo Starr, U2 and literally dozens of others, all major networks, including as our old employers of whom vowed never to perform at Sun City. at ABC and CBS, were neglecting to report on it In addition to the Sun City single, a number either. We were experienced American produc- of other songs were recorded and an album ers; couldn’t we take their footage and package released. In all, more than a million dollars it in a way that would be acceptable to the in- was raised for anti-apartheid projects. Danny scrutable American media system? documented the musical sessions, conducted We resolved to use their material as the interviews, and helped create a feature-length spine of a couple of programs we would create documentary film. In a harbinger of what was in hopes of spurring the networks to provide to come, however, the Public Broadcasting Ser- more coverage. As ex-insiders, we knew that vice (PBS) refused to broadcast The Making of mainstream media were impervious to criti- Sun City, claiming the featured artists were also cism – but that the threat of competition could involved in making the film and were therefore motivate them to react. Long story short: those “self-promoting.” “couple of programs” turned into three years of Danny had managed the entire enterprise a weekly broadcast newsmagazine we named while working full-time for ABC. “I couldn’t South Africa Now. We produced 156 consecutive tell them what I was doing,” he later told me. episodes of the non-profit series on a shoestring, “And I couldn’t pitch a 20/20 Sun City segment operating from what Variety aptly termed “a loft- either, because I had become part of the story. I hovel,” funding it with grants and donations, was terrified they would dump me if they knew and producing it despite the fact that we were what I was doing, so I just worked even harder, “whitelisted” – banned by the white-minority producing more stories so I couldn’t be accused regime even from entering South Africa. of slacking off.” We also had to distribute the program our- I had happily obtained a staff producer posi- selves. When we approached PBS for assistance, tion at CBS News after moving to New York. But executives there refused, citing as justification soon the constraints of network news proved the fact that the program was avowedly anti- too great for both of us. I began prodding Danny apartheid and claiming that we were therefore about our long-planned global show; with both advocates and not journalists – a charge we then of us finally in the same city again, it was time had to spend years refuting. Our first break- to either put up or shut up. So we quit our jobs through came when one of the few African- to become what Danny immediately dubbed American programmers in the public broadcast “network refugees,” and began working out of system agreed to air SAN in New York on the a small borrowed office in Soho at the startup secondary channel of WNYC. (WNET, the pre- company we called Globalvision –- a contrac- mier station, initially turned it down.) As a re-

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 13 sult of being on the air in prime time in New “Unlike cooking, stock tips and purple dino- York – the media capital of the world – we soon saurs!” we exclaimed in frustrated press releas- were the subjects of a major feature article in es and interviews. Once again we were forced the New York Times. The next day our phones to self-distribute; once again we succeeded in were ringing off their hooks as reporters from convincing more than 100 public television sta- all over the country, all of whom seemed to take tions to carry the program weekly for four years their news cues from the Times, suddenly ex- between 1992-96. We were also able to place it in pressed interest in what the newspaper dubbed more than 60 other countries – perhaps anoth- “the little show that could.” er step on the road to “the world’s first global In the end – and despite PBS – we managed television program.” to get South Africa Now carried on nearly 150 By the end of 1996, when we ceased produc- individual public television stations in the US, tion, we had been in business for eight years and 16 other countries, including many of the –and spent seven of them producing weekly so-called ‘frontline states” bordering South Afri- non-profit television programs. It was a curi- ca. The program won a prestigious George Polk ously counter-intuitive but ultimately success- Award and many other honors – and gradual, ful path for a media startup. We were elated, grudging acceptance from the mainstream. Fi- exhausted – and almost broke. But we had put nally even PBS softened its stance and asked us our little company on the map literally all over to create a nationally televised prime time spe- the world – and done our small part in service of cial, which aired on February 11, 1990—the day human rights and freedom along the way. that Nelson Mandela, free at last after 27 years, Since PBS officials had always used the fact walked out of Victor Verster prison. that we were producing series as a way to say The fact that Mandela was on a path from no, we decided to focus on making more docu- prisoner to president meant that for once we mentaries, such as the Mandela films and three had friends in high places. We followed the investigative films I had made for their Front- PBS special Nelson Mandela: Free At Last with line strand. Although they finally did air our a string of other documentaries about Mandela forward-looking film Globalization and Human and his movement, including Mandela in Amer- Rights in 1998, however, our long and tortured ica, which chronicled his triumphant tour of the relationship with “the public” broadcast system US in 1991, and Countdown to Freedom, about never really improved much. Although we had his successful bid to become president of South first created television for WGBH and had long Africa. Each time we had exclusive insider ac- considered the pubcaster our natural ally, it was cess, thanks to our efforts with SAN. clear that the feeling wasn’t mutual. At the same time we began to hatch plans The growing realization that the media we for a second series, one that would examine hu- thought we were part of, or at least allied to, was man rights concerns not just in southern Africa, actually “one of the problems of the world” led but all over the world. We also did our best to us to explore new ways to reach audiences di- ingratiate ourselves with PBS . . .but to no avail. rectly by bypassing gatekeepers like PBS execs. Even after we produced two different pilots and Enter the World Wide Web – and a pioneering attached Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the system’s site we created called the Media Channel. Be- most prominent woman and African-American gun in 1999 (an eternity ago in Internet years,) presenter, PBS still wouldn’t support Rights & Mediachannel.org was an early, pre-Google ag- Wrongs: Human Rights Television. Instead, its gregator of global media news and perspectives, top executive told us point-blank that human as well as a voice for reform of the entire media rights was “an insufficient organizing principle” system. for a regular television program. It was also a channel for Danny’s unearthly

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energy and many enthusiasms. An early adopt- and she immediately counseled him to go into er, he saw the potential of the Net and embraced business with us. it before most. When blogging software became Together, beginning in the post-9/11, “Why available, he jumped in with both feet, resur- do they hate us?” world, we created the Global- recting the News Dissector brand, writing thou- vision News Network, a pre-Google News ef- sands of words daily while linking to sources all fort to create an Internet-based wire service of over the world. Media Channel, which contin- news from outlets all over the world. Within six ued to his death, is given some credit – but not months, we had signed up hundreds of partners nearly enough –- for laying the groundwork for from six continents. an entire media reform movement in the US, We were hard at work developing the service one that recently achieved a major success in and creating new products such as News Not in convincing the FCC to keep “net neutrality” and the News when we learned that Leonardo had ensure equal access to all. also become ill. Sadly, and ironically, he had been Along the way we continued to work on our diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the ailment plans for The Global Show – and sometimes that later felled Schechter. In both cases the end came close to realizing it. Once we managed to came quickly; by the end of 2002 we attended interest a top executive at Coca-Cola, then the Mondadori’s funeral in Milan, along with thou- world’s most global company. He enthusiasti- sands of Italians including then-Prime Minister cally told us to send him a short proposal, took Silvio Berlusconi. His children fell to squabbling it with him on vacation – and promptly had a and suing one another over the rich estate – and heart attack. We also reached Steve Ross, the told us to simply fold the still-developing global powerful head of Time Warner. After interview- news wire. Once again, we had come close . . . ing him at an investment conference, we were As the century turned and progressed, Dan- called to his office high above Manhattan’s mid- ny didn’t age so much as accelerate. In addition town. “From the streets to the suites,” indeed! to blogging and making films such as In Debt Ross, too, waxed enthusiastic, took the proposal We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts, and promised to get back to us promptly. The a prescient, pre-Recession 2006 analysis of next we heard from Time Warner, however, was America’s tottering economic system, he also that Ross was taking a leave to battle cancer. He regularly turned out multi-part television series never returned. such as Who Rules America? and, most recently, We did manage to form an alliance with America’s Surveillance State (now playing on Leonardo Mondadori, the head of the billion- Free Speech TV.) Bored, I suppose, and with too dollar Italian publishing firm Mondadori. How much time on his hands, he returned to radio it happened was echt-Schechter: Harper’s edi- and began a weekly Internet-based show. And tor Lewis Lapham suggested Danny meet with always, incessantly, he churned out books at an Leonardo. On the way over, Danny searched for astonishing rate – 17 in all, at last count. One of a connection. “Who do I know in Italy?” he re- the earliest is perhaps the best: The More You membered asking himself. Watch, The Less You Know – his “candid insid- Only one person: Marialina Marcucci, a er’s tale of how the media really works and why millionaire heiress to a pharmaceutical for- it doesn’t work the way it should.” (The book tune, who had been an admirer of our Rights recounts in greater detail many of the media ad- & Wrongs series and ordered the executives of ventures referred to here.) And to my surprise I Superchannel, a pan-European satellite net- just learned that, following the recently issued work that appeared in 52 countries, to carry the When South Africa Called, We Answered, we can program in prime time. As luck would have it, expect not one, but at least two posthumous Marcucci and Mondadori were extremely close, publications.

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 15

Protean, prolific, but far from perfect, Dan- Queens Catholic partner – but we shared a fun- ny Schechter has been variously and well-de- damentally working class, outer-borough, anti- scribed: the “Duke Ellington of chaos;” “cheru- authority attitude. And though we learned to bic;” a “hero of downward mobility;” a “shame- move easily “from the streets to the suites,” we less self-promoter;” a “human rights activist;” were more comfortable as outsiders and more at a “royal pain in the ass.” All are true in part, as home with “friends in low places,” and it often all captured parts of his multi-faceted identity. redounded to our benefit in surprising ways. He could be equally inspirational and infuri- One final anecdote will illustrate: it was dur- ating; impatient and intense; caring and self- ing dark days for South Africa and even darker centered; scattered yet somehow perfectly on ones for South Africa Now. Mandela was still in point. He was at once cursed and blessed with a prison with no sign of much change; we were roaring case of ADD that simultaneously fueled down to our last hundred dollars to produce the and frustrated him. He was legendarily messy show. and retentive, never throwing anything out, The good news was that we had received a holding crowded court in an office that literally large grant from the MacArthur Foundation; grew smaller every year as the walls moved in the bad news was that the check was way over- and an accretion of memorabilia, letters, scripts, due. Finally we called to see where it was, only awards, notes, videotapes and other jetsam ac- to hear that it had been sent weeks earlier to the cumulated like sleazy sediment in some coastal wrong address. I was distraught, but Danny was mangrove. Sometimes in mid-conversation he adamant. “We have to go find it,” he insisted. would pause, reach down distractedly to pick When we got to the location where the check something off the floor, and show it to me. Sev- had been erroneously sent, however, we were eral times it was a check to Globalvision he had confronted by a 12-story building. How could we shamelessly forgotten to hand over; once it was possible find our money? Undaunted, we went a 1962 letter from Malcolm X. With Danny, you in to look around. The first person we saw was a just never knew. janitor, so we explained our situation to him. It That was the beauty of the man – or part of turned out he was an African immigrant – and it at least. Add in the fact that, unlike most jour- an ardent fan. “South Africa Now? I love that nalists, Danny operated from a basic worldview show!” he exclaimed to our mutual amazement. and overall analysis that informed all his work, “Come with me – we must find your check!” no matter the medium or topic. Although it Office by office, we proceeded, floor by floor. sometimes tripped him up him – despite what Just as we were about to give up, we found a I considered ample evidence of wrongdoing, for woman who recalled receiving the check. She example, he would never countenance any criti- had given it back to the mail carrier – maybe cism of, say, Winnie Mandela – it also enabled it was still at the post office? So it was, and the him to provide all too-rare context along with show was saved for another season. his content. He also had – dare we say it? - a I could go on . . . but knowing Danny as I did pronounced class consciousness that provided a (it’s still hard to think of him in the past tense!) firm foundation for everything he created. I know he would insist on having the final word. Looking back, I see clearly that Danny’s class So here it is, straight from the News Dissector’s identity was one of the major things that united mouth, as he wrote on Common Dreams less us and kept us working together through the than a year ago: decades, despite the many inevitable conflicts “I am compelled to make media, compelled and crises that sometimes threatened our re- to do what I can, thinking modestly that perhaps lationship. In many ways we were quite differ- somewhere, in hearts I don’t know, words or im- ent – he a Bronx Jew, a decade older than his ages can still stir souls to rise.” l

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 16 Remembering Danny Schechter How Danny became the Postperson from Pluto Ronnie Kasrils tells how he recruited Danny for a secret mission to apartheid South Africa

anny Schechter, my friend of 48 years, temporary answers though activism. He had was a mensch who proudly referred to close contact with leading figures and foot sol- his 1942 birthplace as “The People’s diers alike from those turbulent times. I met DRepublic of the Bronx” – that part of Stokely Carmichael in Danny’s shabby bedsit New York City populated then by many class- in London’s Islington (well before it became conscious Jewish immigrants. trendy) and talked about race and revolution His family, like mine, hailed from Lithu- and narrow shaves with the Ku Klux Klan. His ania and their radicalism and wit gave shape involvement in protests against his country’s to his life. He gained fame as a media activist invasion of Vietnam epitomised the coura- and commentator of note. His was a combat- geous revolt of American youth. ive, witty, irrepressible, guerrilla fighter style of He was one of many self-exiled Americans mosquito against elephant. It derived from his who took to foreign shores to avoid the draft passionate involvement in just causes from the which is why I originally assumed he opted for American civil rights movement, through Viet- further studies in Britain. But study in isolation nam’s liberation struggle, anti-apartheid soli- from social upheaval was not in his book. He darity, freedom for Mandela, labour, race and was eclectic and abuzz with radical ideas and gender issues, rampant capitalism, electronic practical action. We participated in the first surveillance, environmental catastrophe and ever British university occupation over the so much more. LSE rector’s pig-headed handling of protests I met Danny at the London School of Eco- against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and UDI declara- nomics, in 1967, where he was extremely tion. The fact that the rector’s background was popular. From the start we got on so well that Rhodesia-linked added fuel to the fire. I had I referred to him as “Danny Boy”. He was a some connection with Bertrand Russell, the post-graduate student studying for an honours philosopher, and first lecturer at the LSE when degree and had become friends with Ruth First it was established in the 1920s. Danny encour- with whom he pretended to flirt. I asked her aged me to seek Russell’s support and together what she thought of him and remember her re- we presented his solidarity message to the stu- marking: “Bright and irreverent, although for dent body to rousing applause. We were instru- him Marxism is not the crust of the earth.” mental in establishing an association of third Danny was that species of unconventional world students – Africa, Asia, Latin America – American leftist who had cut his teeth in stu- and campaigned on issues ranging from Cuba dent protests, studied Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, to Vietnam to Palestine. We marched on the Is- Mao and Malcolm X and sought creative, con- raeli embassy, protested American aggression

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 17

At a Soweto music festival during the lead-up to South Africa’s first non-racial election in 1994:R onnie Kasrils (right) with South African musician Johnny Clegg (second left), who performed at the event, and Danny Schechter. Andrew ‘The Admiral’ Kasrils (Ronnie’s son) is at far left. Photo: Eleanor Kasrils against Vietnam, held a memorial meeting What the exiled ANC and SACP (Communist for Che Guevara after his assassination in Bo- Party) alliance desperately needed was to get livia, debated Regis Debray and Frans Fannon, the message of resistance and hope across to showed films like “Battle for Algiers”, donated a battered people. The literature was crammed blood for Vietnam and threw wild fund-raising into false-bottomed suitcases, and the mission parties. of the likes of Danny was essentially to post I was part of the underground structures of the subversive material we provided to South the then-outlawed African National Congress African addresses. This might sound easy and (ANC) in enforced exile following the crush- humdrum. But courage and nerve was required ing by apartheid of all democratic resistance. I to pass through customs, hole up in a scruffy soon recruited him for a secret mission to South hotel room, purchase envelopes and postage Africa. He accepted with alacrity despite the stamps, copy out the addresses from lists we dangers which I was at pains to point out. This provided, and finally foray into the night to was the beginning of an episode that has come surreptitiously post the material over as wide to be known as “the London recruits”, involv- an area as possible. ing workers from Britain’s Young Communist It could be nerve wracking, with paranoia League (YCL) and socialist activists from the playing its haunting role, eyes of hotel staff and LSE like Danny. They were radicals of pale pig- postal clerks seemingly glued to your every mentation who could travel to South Africa as move, and the lonely toil lasting several days. tourists, smuggling leaflets, forged documents These couriers were instructed to behave and funds to an oppressed people whose lead- like typical white tourists and avoid any contact ership and movement had virtually been elimi- with black South Africans. Later, with cursory nated in arrests, round-ups and killings. training, recruits smuggled in components for

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 18 Remembering Danny Schechter

workers, this supposedly typical white tourist joined in the mopping-up. I must have rolled my eyes as he recounted his story, grateful that the manager had not seen such unconvention- al behaviour. “Gee,” Danny exclaimed “I could hardly stand by after the mess I had made . . . could I?” He suddenly appeared guilty. I can- not forget the cherubic smile and mop of curly unkempt hair. No damage was done so we laughed it off. That, however, was not half of it. The banned President of the ANC, Albert Luthuli, died Intrepid gatecrasher: Danny Schechter at the fu- while Danny was in Durban that July of 1967. neral of Chief Albert Luthuli in Groutville, Natal, The funeral was held in Luthuli’s Groutville vil- South Africa, on July 30, 1967. lage, a couple of hour’s drive from Durban, in those days off the beaten track. the assembly of simple “bucket bombs”. These Our intrepid courier, having completed his harmless devices propelled the leaflets into the propaganda mission, and now feeling safe and air. Ingenuity led to the use of street broadcast at ease, considered it his internationalist duty equipment relaying ANC speeches in public to pay his respects to the Nobel Peace Prize places. winner and great man of Africa. The challenge So staggered were these recruits encounter- was how to get to the venue? Only untouch- ing the bizarreness of apartheid in practise that ables such as churchmen, diplomats and for- according to Danny it was “like visiting Pluto”. eign journalists, would be prepared to brave Joe Slovo, privy to Danny’s involvement, liked the police cordon and travel through check the quip and would ask me “How are your Plu- points to a funeral the security police would tonic postmen?” do their level best to keep as limited in size as Danny’s mission was a success. However, possible. in debriefing him, I came to realise that there Undeterred, Danny persuaded an Indian was no way that his effervescence could be re- waiter from his hotel to drive him by a circu- strained even in the face of danger. There was itous route to the venue. Fearful of getting too clearly nothing of the lone-wolf, dispassionate close, his driver dropped him off in a sugar secret agent about this guy. cane field, and told him that if he was not back He recounted how in the cut-price Durban within two hours he would have gone. hotel I had directed him to, owing to a tight As Danny made his way to the church he budget, he had ambled down the corridor to came across a crowd of ANC supporters hold- run a bath and wandered back to his room ing aloft banners, flags and a portrait of Luthu- for something or other. In his absent-minded li. He simply joined them and marched into the way he lost track of time, forgetting the run- venue, surrounded by sullen police who must ning bath until a clamour arose. The bath had have been puzzled, to say the least, by the sight overflowed and Danny was soon apologising to of a young white person in a crowd of militant the hotel manager. “No problem, the boys will black men and women singing freedom songs clean up,” he was told. The “boys” turned out with gusto. The presence of the diplomatic to be a couple of elderly Zulu cleaners. Guilt- corps and cameras would have restrained the ridden Danny rolled up his trousers, got down police for Danny managed to safely disappear on his knees, and to the amazement of the after the event. I was gobsmacked by his chutz-

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 19 pah then and still am to this day. lic speaking. His oratory was complimented This latter operation had a life changing im- by a sharp pen, as prolific author and writer, pact on him. He forged strong personal links crossing swords with Pax America and the in- with many South African comrades such as sidious threat to people and planet posed by Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Pallo Jordan (whom he finance capital and global corporate power. already knew from USA student days), Zanele Danny kept pace with the most current critical Mbeki, Sue Rabkin, and Nelson Mandela him- issues, so eloquently attested in many tributes self. Danny was at the forefront of welcoming from across the globe. events in the USA when Madiba visited after He made one laugh, think, cry and move to his release, and central to the many pre- and act – whether you were a comrade-in-arms or post-release solidarity concerts and films about part of his vast electronic audience. One can- the iconic figure which included Anant Singh’s not say that he was uncritical of what South movie Long Walk to Freedom. Danny made Africa has become. In fact he was saddened by several documentaries about Madiba and in- the corruption and lack of principles. But he terviewed him numerous times. When the never regretted his lifelong involvement. The great man first visited New York he stopped LSE student for whom “Marxism was not the by a group of organisers, noticed Danny and crust of the earth” remained the combative so- famously enquired to everyone’s amusement, cial activist to the very end where others had “Danny do you remember me?” become self-satisfied, smug, defensive, oppor- Danny Schechter, unforgettable mensch, tunistic and complacent. In the face of adversi- born 27 June, 1942, died March 17, 2015, at the ty he would never say “no way” and his motto age of 72 in his New York home after a brave was “never say die”. He remained an activist battle with cancer. He will be sorely missed by and thinker, human being of moral courage so many friends world-wide, who offer solace and internationalist to the very end. The boy to his talented daughter Sarah Schechter and from the Bronx travelled a long way from his immediate family. roots and that 1967 episode as “Postperson He lived an eventful and meaningful life, from Pluto”. inspiring a legion of activists. He opened the For the many South Africans who knew eyes and ears of countless more. He was an in- him, and the thousands whose lives he touched spirational voice in contemporary rebellions anonymously or digitally, it is perhaps fitting including the Anti-War and Occupy Wall Street that the last of his published books, When South movements coming full circle from the civil Africa Called, We Answered, dealt with a country rights era of his student days to the Ferguson whose struggle for democracy and equality he uprising of African-Americans against police dedicated so much of his eventful life to. brutality, exposing the surveillance state and Hamba Kahle (go well) Danny Boy! l the USA’s aggressive imperialist wars. There was no denying the continuity in his Ronnie Kasrils served in the South African life. Best known for his vanguard career as government from 1994-2008; His last portfolio “media dissector” up to the time of his death was Minister of Intelligence under President – evolved from his ground-breaking South Af- Thabo Mbeki. He is a former member of rica Now programmes of the 1980s and other the ANC’s national executive committee (its media forays – he came a long way from the highest elected body), and of the South African clandestine distributor of leaflets in South Communist Party politburo. He was a founding Africa. His was a vibrant engaging witty and member of the ANC’s underground army, uncompromising alternative media voice. His Umkhonto weSizwe, and rose through the ranks skills stretched to a brilliant penchant for pub- to become its head of intelligence.

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 20 Remembering Danny Schechter Vinho verde, chicken, fries, and political analysis Beneath the wild hair was a sharply-tuned intellect, writes Sidney Blumenthal

hen, during the summer of 1975, recruited doing work for the Africa Research I landed in Lisbon with my girl- Group on apartheid South Africa, Danny’s friend, Jackie, to cover the un- great crusade. I soon drifted into journalism W folding Portuguese Revolution writing for Boston After Dark, then the Phoe- for the Boston Phoenix, the first thing we did nix and the Real Paper. The Boston of that era, was have dinner with Danny Schechter, who now a lost world, was a crucible for redefining had already scoped out the scene. Over bot- journalism. Danny was the star and impresa- tles of vinho verde, Danny swept the plates rio of WBCN, which was more than a break- of grilled chicken and fries to the side as he through progressive rock radio station un- sketched the political state of play on the pa- bound by constricted industry playlists, but per tablecloth. Drawing boxes that he filled in also one of the most innovative news orga- with the names of political parties, aligned on nizations in the country, featuring the broad- the left, right and center of the table, he lit- casts of Danny Schechter “The News Dissec- erally connected the dots. Upon making each tor.” Danny’s six o’clock reports were essential point, he would punctuate it with a laugh. listening. He had a thrilling way of combining Danny almost always accompanied his in- fact and analysis, in a stream of information sights or observations with laughter. His laugh about the most important events that could was bemused, knowing and infectious. It was be heard no place else. a rumbling laugh that built to a crescendo The boundaries between the Phoenix, the with a head nod. He meant for you to know Real Paper and WBCN were fluid. Danny that when you smiled or laughed in response brought me in to participate in some of the to him you knew, too. Laughter was part of editing of his reports and documentaries, Danny’s language and epistemology. Having and even put me in for a week to fill in on equipped me with his complete knowledge of news broadcasts. Observing Danny at work the revolution he left the next day to return to was like being a hurricane chaser; but in the Boston. I folded up the diagramed tablecloth whirlwind of this hurricane, order miracu- to keep as a sure guide. A few days later, I went lously emerged. Danny would race into the to the U.S. Embassy to interview a political at- studio atop the Prudential Center clutching taché, but Danny’s briefing was far more in- handfuls of crumpled papers with notebooks formative. bulging out of his pockets. He had scrawled I met Danny sometime near the beginning his reports in bits and pieces across dozens of of time, perhaps in 1969 or 1970, after I gradu- pages. He alone could decipher what he had ated from college. I found myself instantly written. Rushing on the air he interspersed

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 21 his broadcasts with snatches of music that he was the very last thing he was. He cared seemed to have located out of the ether. He deeply and profoundly for social justice, and managed to synthesize it all in a kind of per- for people, not in the abstract, but the living formance art. It was breathless, compelling people around him. His eye was on the prize. and frequently hilarious. He was generous to a fault. Whatever he was Danny may have been descended from a capable of doing, he would do on his own. In lineage of Harpo Marx and Karl Marx, Walter a small example, when I wrote a number of Lippmann and Walter Winchell. Beneath the political articles in the Real Paper he arranged wild hair was a sharply-tuned intellect. He for Beacon Press to publish them. The book could deliver the smartest analysis if he had was The Permanent Campaign, and I was on to in the staccato style of a wire service report. my way. Decades later, Danny encountered He uniquely mixed a thousand influences and my son, Max, launching himself in journal- 8,000 albums, constantly open to new sources ism, and encouraged him, too. Danny couldn’t and sounds. help but help. He had an expansive mind but Danny was educated at Cornell and the a bigger heart. You could almost hear it beat- London School of Economics, but he was de- ing when he spoke. termined to investigate reality from the street Danny loved journalism, not the business level up. Just as he effortlessly participated of journalism, but the actual practice of it. He in seminars at Harvard, where he was a Nie- loved covering events, interviewing, learning man Fellow, he wandered without hesitation the story and what was behind it, and the an- through Boston’s working class neighbor- tic camaraderie of other journalists. It wasn’t a hoods and the Combat Zone – and Soweto. profession so much as a way of life, a passport He was equally at ease with the great, near to places near and far, and always a means to great and not so great. His mind could meld higher ends. with John Lennon or someone he happened One day in 1976 we covered a speech at to strike up a conversation with in a bar. Suffolk University delivered by recently fired I would be remiss not to mention here CIA director William Colby. In the middle of our mutual friend Jerry Berndt, one of the his talk Danny suggested that we pose to- great photographers of our generation, who gether for a portrait with Colby. We stood in died at the age of 69 two years ago in Paris. front of the podium while a photographer Jerry was with us on our Portuguese es- snapped our picture and gave us copies. Dan- capade, and on many others. His series of ny autographed mine: “To Sid, as always, Bill photographs of prostitutes and the home- Colby.” l less captured not simply their plight, that was easy enough, but also their humanity. Sidney Blumenthal is former Assistant and Jerry, who was from a working class back- Senior Adviser to President Bill Clinton, and ground in Milwaukee, had an unusual em- Senior Adviser to Hillary Clinton. He began pathy for the down and out. He provided a his journalistic career writing for the Boston wry counterpoint to Danny, with whom he Phoenix and The Real Paper and has been a often ventured out into the urban wilder- staff writer for The Washington Post; senior ness. Jerry had the eye to match Danny’s editor for The New Republic; Washington ear. Their journalism was unified through editor and staff writer for The New Yorker; their compassion for their subjects. columnist for The Guardian of London; Danny could be chaotic, utterly immersed Washington editor and columnist for Salon; in whatever his latest project might be and and political editor for The Daily Beast. He is distracted by shiny objects. But self-absorbed the author many books.

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 22 Remembering Danny Schechter Wild and Yippie-infused determınation Schechter was fierce and fun, unrelenting, yet optimistic about what might be made of media

t is impossible to fully explain media criti- What distinguished Schechter, who has cism – and media understanding – as it ex- died too young at age 72, was his merging of ists today without recognizing the remark- a stark and serious old-school I.F. Stone-style Iable contribution of Danny Schechter. understanding of media power and manipu- Two years before Ben Bagdikian took apart lation with a wild and joyous Yippie-infused the fantasy that American media was liberal, determination to rip it up and start again. with The Elite Conspiracy and Other Crimes by Schechter was of his times. He marched the Press (Harper & Row), more than a decade for civil rights and against wars. He made before Bagdikian exposed the corporate infra- common cause with hippies and Yippies. structure of news-gathering with The Media He danced and sang and inhaled. He was, he Monopoly (Beacon Press), more than 15 years recalled, “a participatory journalist, a down- before Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting with-the-movement reporter, a manic media (FAIR) began its ongoing exploration of the maven.” abuses and excesses of that corporate media, But Schechter also came to recognize “how and almost twenty years before Edward Her- naive we were, how arrogant, how out-maneu- man and Noam Chomsky put it all together vered” the movements of the 1960s and early with Manufacturing Consent: The Political 1970s were. And he made it his purpose over Economy of Mass Media (Pantheon), there was the ensuing decades to tell the whole story of this news director on the coolest radio station the real stories of protest and power, and of in Boston, WBCN-FM, who started his daily how media and political and economic elites show with the announcement, “This is Danny manipulate democracy. Schechter, your News Dissector.” Schechter did not always do so as an out- Dissecting the news was Schechter’s thing. sider. After his gig at WBCN, he went nation- He reported to listeners what was happening, al, as a producer for the ABC newsmagazine then he explained why it was happening, and 20/20, where he won two Emmy Awards. He then he revealed why other media outlets did helped to get CNN started, served as an ex- not tell the whole story. It was bold and dar- ecutive producer for Globalvision and as ex- ing, and the word of what Danny Schechter ecutive editor for MediaChannel.org. He de- was doing on one progressive-rock station in veloped and served as executive producer for Boston spread far and wide. “As ‘News Dis- the remarkable South Africa Now news maga- sector’ on Boston radio,” recalled Chomsky, zine, which played a critical role in revealing “Danny Schechter literally educated a genera- the true story of apartheid and of the global tion.” anti-apartheid movement. He used television

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 23

Walking across the Harvard Athletic Fields during an early 70’s demonstration with Danny (left), Paul Breines (center), and brother Bill Schechter (right) and film and books and the Internet – where zen journalists. That wasn’t a fight that many he was a pioneering blogger on media issues Emmy Award winners took on. But the guy – to reveal and challenge the failure of major who used to dissect the news on rock station media to expose human rights abuses abroad out of Boston understood why it mattered. and corporate abuses at home. “A growing segment of the public wants Schechter always recognized that he had to be involved with new media. The boom in antecedents as a critic of corporate and steno- on-line computer networks and even radio graphic media – George Seldes and I.F. Stone, talk shows demonstrates the demand and the among them – and he was always there to need – which the media giants are unlikely to counsel, to cheer on, to poke and prod those satisfy,” he wrote for Newsday in 1993. “Let’s who carried the critique forward. hope that the Congressional watchdogs who He could do so because he had stood at the are questioning the anti-trust implications pivot point where the mediasphere was getting of these new monopolies-in-the-making will more consolidated and less courageous, and he speak out to preserve public access. In com- had recognized this as an affront to cherished mercial television, everything is slick, but lit- premises of a free press and democracy itself. tle matters. Its edges may be rough, but public He finished his career as he began, fierce and access should matter to us – not only for what fun, unrelenting in his critique yet optimistic it is, but for what it can become.” l about what might be made of media. One of Schechter’s great fights was to main- John Nichols is Washington correspondent for tain local public-access television program- The Nation magazine and associate editor of ming and new-media interventions by citi- the Capital Times at Madison, Wisconsin.

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 24 Remembering Danny Schechter Memorable moments with Mandela Film director Anant Singh looks back on the man who influenced America about South Africa’s apartheid

ur friendship began when I met Danny Until the very end, he remained diligently in New York in the early 1980’s, just be- committed to his career and on March 4, he fore I produced my first anti-apartheid gave me a copy of his latest book, When South Omovie. He played such an important Africa Called We Answered. It is in many ways role in informing America about apartheid and his autobiography and I’m so glad that he South African’s harsh laws. He did this through wrote this book. In the closing lines he says: his writings, through his films and through the “The struggle for freedom in South Africa many campaigns that he led. also made us all better people and world citizens We did many films together, starting with as well as members of a community of change Mandela In America, six documentaries on who learned from the solidarity that this work Madiba and several other struggle heroes. inspired. Most recently, I brought Danny for South Af- It gave us all a sense that activists from many rica to be with us for the entire shoot of Man- lands and traditions can work together in a spirit dela: Long Walk To Freedom. He was the Be- of internationalism for social justice. hind the Scenes Director, putting together the Those who fought against apartheid then hav- documentary that became Beyond Long Walk ing to keep fighting against its reincarnations. To Freedom. I was against apartheid then – and I still am! I have fond memories of being with Danny Yet the struggle did show that “the people” in many places. I remember sitting with him can win – at least for a while. South Africa today at the Church of Saint John in New York City is no utopia, but it sure as hell is better than what where Madiba was being honoured. As Madiba it was. left, he walked by, greeted me and then turned And, it didn’t change all by itself.” and said “Danny do you remember me” and A quote from his 90 year old father “that his everyone around us laughed. We had memora- generation had failed to create a ‘better world’ ble moments at Madiba’s inauguration where will the same be said of mine….” Probably yes, we met Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, most of the but Danny has done his father proud and has American delegation and others. He was popu- done so much more than we can expect from lar with almost all of the anti-apartheid activ- any one person. l ists in exile and those who remained in South Africa, all of whom he knew well and devel- Anant Singh is CEO of Durban-based oped lasting friendships. He was so proud of Videovision Entertainment and was the the important role he played in our liberation, producer of the film Mandela: Long Walk yet remained modest about it. To Freedom.

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 25

Hair-raising: Danny could make anyone laugh. With Don King in 1988 Our friend, Danny Stories, memories and photographs

Flying with Jesse press section with Danny and announced that he was not just meeting with the leaders of had a number of adventures with Danny. the Frontline States but was holding a “Sum- I Here are some snapshots. mit.” He then let Danny brief the press corps We are in the press section of a large air- on our next stop because Danny was the most plane covering for ABC 20/20 Jesse Jackson’s knowledgeable about African politics. peace mission to the African Frontline States Later, we arrived at the Chevron oil com- during the early 80’s. Danny is entertaining plex in Angola on the day African comman- the press corps with his take off of Jackson’s dos were apprehended attempting to blow it stump speech “We are having a summit. We up. Instead of getting blown up, we got the got aid, We got trade. We’ve gone from slave first interview with the commandos. Travel- ship to championship,” he said, unaware that ing with Danny could be risky business. one of the Reverend’s aides was behind him. Several years later. Danny and I were in The laughter stopped, Danny turned around Costa Rica during Reagan’s covert contra war and was directed to the front of the plane to against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. We had meet Jackson. I figured that the subject of the helped Peter Gabriel organize a benefit for the meeting was our being fired and kicked off the University of Peace, whose head was the for- plane. However, Rev. Jackson came back to the mer Costa Rican president. He had supported

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 26 Remembering Danny Schechter

the revolution in Nicaragua and planned a show/home video. When PBS first refused to trip for us there. air the program because it was one-sided, his We flew into Managua. Daniel Ortega must response was that there was only one side to not have been too busy as president, for he being anti-apartheid. It was aired. met us at the airport and drove us around as Later when the South African government our tour guide, showing us the volcano where censored news and the networks no longer Somoza had thrown his brother into the cra- ran stories on anti-apartheid protest in South ter. He drove us back to the airport and we Africa, Danny decided to break the boycott, flew back to San Jose. When we arrived, we although he still had a full time job at 20/20. were treated as ghosts, for a plane just like He started Globalvision, an international news ours had been shot down by the contras and company, taking some space in my Soho loft everybody assumed that we were dead in the with journalist Rory O’Connor and producer jungle. Daphne Pinkerson. From Sun City and his Just about every time I ran into Danny, he friendship with a college friend who was head had some sort of project we could do togeth- of public relations for the ANC, Danny em- er, and these were not small projects. Ending barked on smuggling news stories from South Apartheid was one. Africa and started the TV show South Africa Having a full time job as a 20/20 produc- Now to break the news boycott. er did not get in the way of his undertaking As usual, there was no funding, but my other full time projects. One was producing a Dad had a satellite distribution company that musicians’ boycott of South Africa with Little would pay $350 for each show and get it on Steven van Zandt. He helped Steven produce the outer channels of TV. Since Danny never the anti-apartheid song Sun City, and enlisted seemed to sleep, he would finish his workday me to document it, produce the video and TV at 20/20, come down to the loft and write a script with Daphne, who had collected foot- age from South Africa. Then they would edit throughout the night with student interns who operated my gear. I would be up at 8:30 am to meet FedEx so the tape could go up on the satellite. Somehow Danny and Rory found the time to write proposals and get funding so that South Africa Now became a PBS program host- ed by Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Danny, as the News Dissector, was passion- ate about revealing the truth about media manipulation and lies that exploited people. — Hart Perry is an award-winning film pro- ducer and director and co-founder of South Africa Now. Sun City days. Schechter (front row, far left) work- ing on the “Sun City” video with director Jonathan Demme and producer Hart Perry, along with (back Laughs and bagels row, L-R} Big Youth, Lou Reed, Reuben Blades, n 2012 I decided to drop everything and John Oates, and Little Steven. Photograph by David Imove to the big city. At the age of 27. I was Seelig for The Solidarity Foundation lost, confused, and desperate to find someone

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 27

imagine working with some of the brightest intellectuals in politics, media, journalism, and government – but I did, and it was all thanks to the News Dissector. Throughout the work, we developed a close friendship. Danny opened his doors physically and emotionally. If work ever became sparse on my end, he offered to help. If Danny need- ed help with an out of reach errand, I ran. It only lasted three years, but I will always miss our laughs, our fights, and our coffees at Mur- ray’s Bagels. – Nizar Assad is an independent producer/production manager based in NYC. He has helped create numerous inves- tigative documentary programs for Danny Schechter’s Glovalvision Inc, VICE Media, Danny: Laughs, fights, coffee and bagels. and Bad Babies Films. or some place that would give me a sign as to Come dancing what I should do with my life. Eventually, I stumbled across an online ad for an associate was 22, he was 28. One day he called me and producer role for an opportunity to work with I asked, “How’d ya like to go out dancing Sat- an Emmy Award winning journalist on a six- urday night?” part doc-series. Oh, Sure I would. I would! Next thing I know it, I’m getting yelled So, Friday afternoon I dragged the poor at in the middle of the hallways of the Left kids through the Goodwill store until I found Forum: “THIS IS RUN-AND-GUN, NIZAR some finery, which consisted of a dilapidated . . . LET’S GO!”. And yes, run and gun it was, sheer black chiffon scarf embossed with large raging through Pace University with a crap- orange roses and a mid-calf length old, old, py camera, grabbing Danny’s favorites, who black crepe dress. Then, at the drug store, I would give us some worthy soundbites. I was splurged on a pair of sheer black hose. blown away at how precise, and intellectually Friday night, eight inches came off the hem sound Danny suddenly became once the cam- of the dress, the collar and front came down era was rolling – like nothing I had ever seen. as far as I dared, and the scarf was inserted I knew then that, despite the unconventional daintily,. Sleeves? Hmmmm . . . slit up the wackiness, I was in the presence of someone side and curved so that they flowed. I pulled special. Three years later, we rebooted Media- and tugged and hiked on the miserable tights, Channel.org and produced another six-part stepped into my teetering platform sandals, series for RT America/Press TV on the NSA did up the straps, and was ready to go! surveillance revelations. Saturday, 7 pm. It’s time. Kiss the kids Danny was a genuine soul like no other; goodnight, hasty instructions to the baby sit- he didn’t care what degree you had, what re- ter, “Don’t forget, your mother is right down ligion you practiced, or what color your skin stairs if you need anything.” Wink, wink, was – he just wanted to share his life’s work, goodbye. or make some random reference just to make Down and down and down the tenement you laugh. Never in my wildest dreams did I stairs. Out into the street with my date, Dan-

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 28 Remembering Danny Schechter

ny. I was startled to see a tall, handsome dark man with Elvis-like black hair and an Abe Lin- coln beard unfold himself from the car. “Hi, I’m Charles. I work with Danny.” I must have looked blank, because he said, “You know, at the radio station?” Ok . . . Charles, aka Chuck, got into the back seat and I plopped down beside Danny, who was driving. We drove, and drove and drove, but got nowhere near Boston. This would have been the right place to drive to go danc- ing. Throughout, Chuck regaled me with tales of the radio studio where they both worked, he as a DJ, Danny as . . . New, no . . . News Dis- sector! Hours passed and still we were driving. A couple of bones got lit up and burned down. More relaxed, I finally asked, “Where are we going?” “Oh, you’ll see. You’ll see,” said Dan- ny and he and Chuck howled with laughter. Down a dark county road, we drove up toward a forbidding looking building. Little lights winked outside some kind of giant door, “Well, we’re here.” A few minutes later we were being pro- Ready to dance? Danny on campus, 1969, cessed to enter a medium security prison. Down and down a tall long, cold hallway we By that time, both of them were 200 men walked until it unfolded into an enormous away, shouldering their way toward the stairs ugly hall with immensely high ceilings. There that led to the stage. I shrank from following was a stage at the front, I noticed. We had ar- them, acutely aware that there were NO OTH- rived at the site of our dance. ER WOMEN and many of these guys had been The noise was deafening from hundreds of locked up for a long time. men, whose eyes I assiduously tried to avoid, Big, big speakers were being dragged onto while winding my way through. I plucked at the stage. I saw Danny futzing with some Danny’s sleeve. “Where the hell are we,” I wires and Chuck talking with some dude in bellowed, thinking HELL was the best word countryish clothes and a beard, next to the for this place. “Norfolk County Prison,” he stage, I was just standing around in the hall. screamed back. “Don’t worry,” he screamed “Mic check. Mic check.” Then . . . A HUGE again, “It’s a medium security joint.” And BLAST OF SOUND echoing around those then, “Wait right here. I’ll be back soon.” stone walls. Band fuddling around . . . “One Oh, just wait right here while he toddled off Two Three Four . . .” FEETS DON’T FAIL ME with Chuck towards the little stage. Wait right NOW . . . here with at least 600 men and NO FUCKING And the whole joint was rockin’. I was rock- WOMEN? in’ too, with a roomful of men, just thriving Yeah, here. on the beat. And, a few of ‘em danced with But nobody paid me any attention. I looked me, for a time, here and there, but mostly down at my skinny legs and wondered. they danced with each other. I wasn’t sure if I

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 29

should be mad or relieved. on the set of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Pretty soon I forgot about me and just en- 12 years later, for which he was making a The joyed the event. Making of reel. Then Chuck came back on over and some- I’d worked for Ronnie Kasrils in the under- how managed to look urbane while shouting ground years and – having just emerged from at the top of his lungs that he and Danny and a period in hiding, weeks of it spent in my the radio station were sponsoring a whole se- home – Ronnie invited Danny to stay at my ries of rock concerts for these guys. house during his first open visit to South Af- Man in Black, eat out your heart. rica. Danny arrived to take up residence, cov- I didn’t saw Danny again that night, until ering the dining table with paper, spending we got back to the car, after the 600 men had hours on my phone and spending many more dispersed and gone back to their cells. patient hours entertaining my two sons. But we were dancing in the parlor later Danny spent at least one night at our home on, you’d better believe, and the sun came up during almost every visit to Johannesburg dur- and the sun went down. – Naomi Ruth Pin- ing those years, inevitably arriving (or, more son, human rights activist and human rights usually, waiting for me to collect him), with worker in community mental health servic- his tiny luggage bag dwarfed by the swarm es, Cambridge, MA of plastic bags overflowing with notes and the flotsam that seemed to rally to him even Force of nature when he was in motion. I can’t recall a visit when, within a week worked with Danny a lot during my stint at of him leaving, I didn’t receive a call ask- I the American Committee On Africa - on the ing if we’d found some scraps of paper with Sun City music video project and his hugely vital notes, and could we forward them or important South Africa Now program. Less a read them to him over the phone. producer and activist than a force of nature, So much has been said about Danny, his Danny was instrumental in keeping the South African liberation struggle in the public eye during some of the most critical years of the resistance. He also drove me crazy, of course. Hell, he drove everybody crazy but we loved him for it. Years later, in the middle of things as usual, he talked me into donating photos for his book – Occupy – about Occupy Wall Street, dammit, but waddayagonna do? Danny didn’t know the word “No”, but he did know how to fight for what’s right. He lived and breathed it and the world is a bet- ter place because he did. Hamba Kahle Dan- ny. Thanks for everything. – Mike Fleshman, New York.

A swarm of plastic bags first met Danny shortly after Mandela’s re- Feeling bullish: Danny visits Wall Street for a Ilease in 1990, and saw him for the last time photo for his book, Occupy.

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 30 Remembering Danny Schechter

Beating the hecklers

s with so many others, listening to Danny A Schechter, the “News Dissector” changed my life. I’m quite sure I would never have be- come a journalist if not for tuning in to 104.1 FM while attending college in Boston. I met him in 1976, when he came to speak at Boston State College, where I was a student. He asked who had written an opinion piece in the school paper on the need to support the MPLA revolutionary movement in An- gola (the school paper was obviously a left- ist rag!), and took an immediate shine to me after learning I was the writer. With former South Africa Now reporter Phillip Knowing very little about how real jour- Tomlinson at the launch of the book, Madiba A to nalism worked, I said I’d just finished a story Z in 2013. about political surveillance at the campus, and how the FBI and other law enforcement courage, his unquestioning, unfailing, com- agencies had targeted student radicals and mitment to justice and to journalism that it is the Black Student Union. difficult to say anything new about him. He immediately said I should go to his ra- Certainly my pre-teen sons never forgot dio show later that day to break the story. I him, although they experienced him (“met” hesitated, because I had promised a freelanc- is too passive a word for any introduction to er from the alternative weekly the Real Paper Danny) in a period when they also met some that I wouldn’t preempt the story she was of the country’s most famous figures. On his doing. She was, it turned out, also a friend of last visit, to have lunch during the Mandela Danny’s. So, with Danny’s assurance, I went movie filming, my son told him that his girl- to the studio and he created a dramatic piece friend was interested in the movie. Danny that led the news, Then he told listeners they piled half-dozen young people into my car, di- could read more about it later that week in rected me to the set and harassed various act- the Real Paper. ing and production luminaries to stop what Several months later, I was invited to speak they were doing and chat to his young guests. at a conference on “The CIA, the Media and The stationary whirlwind of untidy en- Repression” at Boston University, where I also thusiasm that was Danny – scrawled notes, introduced Danny for a talk. He did something stray currency, keys, business cards, shed- that day that was absolutely brilliant. ding even when he was dozing in front of the A group of Lyndon LaRouche followers be- TV – hardly seems to provide the image of a gan heckling him, claiming he was in the CIA. hero. But his inability to recognise the impos- Trying to get them to stop proved beyond my sibility of doing anything other than what ability, but Danny told me not to worry, he’d he believed was right, irrespective of danger handle it. He proceeded to tell them that they or consequences, and the unexpected per- were right, he was in the CIA, and that he sonal kindness I witnessed in him make him knew it and they knew it. But no one else did, just that, an unlikely but undeniable hero. – and they should explain to everyone in the David Niddrie, Johannesburg, South Africa room how it was so. He kept pressing them

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when they veered off course, leaving them to repeat the same empty charges until, bur- ied by the crowd’s jeers, they ran out. Quite a move by our Danny. I was later a news reporter at WBCN years after he left and, as manager of the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, screened the East Coast premiere of Sun City in 1985 at Dan- ny’s urging, with both he and Little Steven in attendance. I’ve long thought of Danny as the Bob Dy- lan of alternative media, on his own Never- Ending Tour. Unlike Dylan, however, it was al- ways clear just how much Danny loved what he did. And how we loved him. With John Lennon and Yoko One at Harvard Mark Sommer, Buffalo, NY University.

know Danny Schechter?” When I said yes, Moral commander they were dazzled. But in America, Danny e have just lost a journalist’s journalist, was, sadly, a prophet outcast in his own land. W the moral commander of investigative The hair-sprayed pseudo-news puppets, with reporters from New York to Johannesburg. their phony tales of derring-do, exiled Dan- Known for bringing the world the story of ny’s clarion reports to the confined pool of Nelson Mandela, Danny gave up cushy jobs at dissenting websites and DVDs. ABC and CNN, the big bucks and a steady flow It had been my plan to surprise Danny by of mainstream awards to blow the whistle on dedicating our current film to him. I will do the degradation of American news. Danny ex- that still, and, as well, dedicate myself to the posed what he called the “news goo” of talk- Sisyphean task he demanded of me and the ing hair-dos – denouncing them as repeaters, many others he mentored: to tell the stories of not reporters. One of his searing books told it the brutalized, cheated, hurt and silenced; to all in the title, The More You Watch, the Less be a voice for the voiceless. – Greg Palast, au- You Know. thor, filmmaker, and journalist, New York. It was Danny Schechter who, two decades ago, hectored and harassed me until I gave No stopping up a darn good job as an investigator, push- ing me to become an investigative reporter. have read countless tributes to Danny (He did demand I wear a wig so I could get on I Schechter these last few days – you might the US boob tube. No way. Instead I went into say that the Dissector has been dissected as journalistic exile at BBC London.) much as eulogized by his plethora of friends And it was Danny Schechter who first and associates also sharing countless anec- brought my investigations back to our be- dotes. nighted America in his film, Counting on De- Yet there is more: beyond his enlightened mocracy. upbringing, his early passion for journalism Once, in Bosnia, when I ran into some re- and human rights; his assistance in organiz- porters from Kazakhstan, and I told them I ing the 1964 March on Washington where MLK was from New York, they asked me, “Do you delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech; his ac-

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 32 Remembering Danny Schechter

tivism at Cornell; his work with Congressman missed a lot . . . John Conyers in Detroit – I’m running out of Don’t forget how he traveled the world to breath and he’s still in his twenties – his job accomplish his contributions to other conflict- at WBCN as News Dissector that reached the ed areas such as Bosnia and as close to home ears of Chomsky, who acknowledged him as as Occupy and to attend conferences, speak, a teacher; the birth of his beloved Sarah and and participate in panels: journalist, activist, his pride in her accomplishments; his Emmy- organizer, speaker, prolific author and blog- award-winning decade with Sixty Minutes; ger, filmmaker, director, tv producer, radio his lifelong involvement in helping to lift the News Dissector, poet, teacher, mentor . . . but Apartheid in South Africa, and he was re- there’s this: warded with its fruition; his work producing He wanted more. He was never satisfied, South Africa Now and other tv productions in never rested on his laurels, even after he be- the early nineties that reached so many and came ill and shelved all of his publications should have reached countless others; his re- in proud display. He dreamed of returning to viving his News Dissector persona online and South Africa when he recovered. He dreamed work with Globalvision, his countless blogs, of recovering even as he knew he wouldn’t, books, and films and books that went with danced in the throes of chemo, and reveled in films, his enormous collections of the work of his friendships, having more time for them at others in various media . . and I’m sure I’ve the end when he could no longer work. And there is more. He would drop his work when needed by friends. I was lucky to have known him for almost 15 years. He was a friend in need – quirky, temperamental, exasperat- ing, and full of love. I sent him a Christmas card one year depicting Atlas, whom I believe he dwarfed. His mind was the world. His anger and the love that inflamed it will live forever. That’s what happens when you do too much and are too much and plan never to stop. You don’t. – Marta Steele is an author and editor. She lives in Washington, DC. Agents meet their match

anny and I shared a house in Somerville Dbetween 1971 and 1974. This is my funni- est memory of him, one that shows not only his sense of humor but his audaciousness, his ultra quick wit, and his over-the-top dedica- tion to his craft. It’s from my memoir, Trouble- maker. . . . Shortly before 8:00 the next morning, I awoke to simultaneous pounding on the front and rear doors of the house I shared The world his oyster. A younger, slimmer, Danny with friends in Somerville. It sounded like an Schechter in 1973. Photo by Paul Semonin, San Francisco arrest just from the way they knocked. Three

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Never judge a genius by the state of his office. Danny at Globalvision. agents flashed badges and guns on the other mined, and they had the advantage of being side of the front door. I asked for their war- higher up. The agents retreated back to the rant. They said it was downtown and that if first floor. To the delight of thousands in the I did not open the door, they would break it Boston area, the entire incident was broadcast down. It was a beautiful old wooden door so that evening on Danny’s news program. – Bill I let them in. As soon as I did, they slapped Zimmerman, Topanga, California me in handcuffs. One of my housemates then appeared on the stairs in his pajamas. He was Voice for reform waving a tape recorder. The agents asked him to identify himself. He said that he was Danny n the late 1990s I edited Free Press for the UK- Schechter, the News Dissector, and that he Ibased Campaign for Press and Broadcasting was covering the arrest for WBCN-FM. Freedom and enthusiastically reviewed Dan- Danny started to mock interview the ny’s The More You Watch, The Less You Know, agents, turning the tense scene into a farce. His published by Seven Stories Press. That was matter-of-fact questions and valid press card in May 1998. In late August that year Danny confused them. He persisted until one of the popped up at the Edinburgh Television Festi- agents threatened to arrest him for obstruct- val, once a forum for passionate debates about ing justice. Meanwhile, three other agents who the purpose of broadcasting but then sadly had been “covering the back” joined the three changing into one which talked more about already in the house. Two of them started up how to make money from broadcasting. the stairs to our second floor. Linda Gordon Danny’s witty and informative comments and Ann Froines, also in pajamas, blocked embarrassed the bigwigs there but they were their way and refused to let them pass until music to my ears and we hit it off. Danny wrote a search warrant was produced. The agents a piece for Free Press about the Edinburgh ex- tried to shove them aside, but Linda and Ann perience and warned “Look out Britain: please shoved back. The women were very deter- take a close look at television’s impact on

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America’s democracy before you rush head- and his ex-wife. I did not have two pennies to long into emulating it here.” Rub together!! He gave me my first introduc- Our paths crossed often after that. I made tion to broadcasting. He enabled me to get a sure he was a keynote speaker, along with John Master’s Degree from Columbia J. School. He Pilger, at a conference we organised on the then gave me a job at PBS doing odds and ends New Labour government’s dire Communica- and then I became an anchor Mweli Mzizi and tions White Paper in February 2001. Two things I and Joe Dischoe. It is the money I made work- I remember about Danny’s contribution: there ing there, that enabled me to pay for my accom- were a lot of young people in the audience and modation in New York. Danny would gather us you could see how attentive they were - their together whenever he was in South Africa! rapport which was shown by the way they clus- On hearing the news I cried like a BABY! I tered around him to ask questions afterwards. loved my scruffy Dad, Danny!!!! Danny projected a dishevelled tousled- Today, I am the Economics Editor of the haired persona but I am looking at the pho- SABC – The South African Broadcasting Cor- tograph of him, arm up as he speaks at the poration! I am responsible for All Economics conference, and he is wearing a suit and tie! news on All our 20 radio stations reaching 24 He may not have been bothered about his ap- million people every day. I am also responsible pearance but he could write and speak power- for All economics news on TV – all our TV sta- fully and cogently on big issues like the sub- tions including Channel 404 with a footprint servient role of the US media in the drive to in 10 African countries. I owe it all to Danny war with Iraq or its role in the financial crisis Schecter and Prof Anton Harber, of Wits Uni- of 2008. versity. – Thandeka Gqubule; Johannesburg, It was Jeff Cohen who sent me the sad news South Africa l of Danny’s death, along with the link to the beautiful song by Phil Ochs, When I’m Gone. Play it and remember fondly the talented, committed, witty voice for media reform that is now silent. – Granville Wil- liams, Pontefract, West York- shire, England.

My second father worked with Danny on South I Africa Now. I did work for him while I worked as a Ca- det Journalist in South Africa’s troubled townships. I applied to Columbia School of Jour- nalism. I was accepted. Danny Making new friends: danny holds court at an event held during fetched me to live with him 1994’s first post-apartheid election in South africa.

Find many more tributes on the Facebook Danny Schechter Memorial Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1420905851554067/

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Preface by GREG PALAST, author of Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-finance Carnivores “[This] may well turn out to be greatest >em non-violent crime against humanity in history … never before have _dj[hdWj_edWb so few done so much to so many” ieb_ZWh_jo DISSECTING – Graydon Carter, Editor, Vanity Fair ^[bf[Z jeffb[ THE NEWS THE CRIME M^[d WfWhj^[_Z & LIGHTING OF OUR TIME Iekj^7\h_YW WAS THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE THE FUSE “INDEED, CRIMINAL?” 9Wbb[Z"M[ DISPATCHES FROM THE 7dim[h[Z MEDIA WAR DANNY SCHECHTER “THE NEWS DISSECTOR” :7DDO Author of PLUNDER I9>;9>J;H DANNY Director of IN DEBT WE TRUST 7kj^ehe\CWZ_XW 7jeP0J^[CWdo

UPDATED “What we're observing, in all its bizarreness, is the ancient paradox of what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. The irresistible force in this case is the U.S. economy... The immovable object is a wall of debt that now can't be paid back." BUSINESS WEEK . EMBEDDED IRAQ ON WAR THE COVER FAILEDMEDIA TOTHE HOW SQUEEZED America As WEAPONS The Bubble Bursts OF MASS A Financial Tsunami • The Crimes of Wall Street • In Debt We Trust Danny Schechter The News Dissector DECEPTION DANNY SCHECHTER NEWS DISSECTOR / MEDIACHANNEL.ORG

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As an appreciation of Danny Schechter’s work with ColdType, we are giving away free downloads of these seven books, all published in association with ColdType.net – Download them at: http://coldtype.net/SchechterBooks.html

WHOSE FREEDOM? THE ATTACK ON CHARLIE HEBDO THE WAR ON CYBER-ACTIVISTS | NICOLE COLSON CRITICAL ESSAYS BY DAVID EDWARDS, CHRIS HEDGES, RICK SALUTIN, JONATHAN COOK, LARRY CHIN, TREVOR GRUNDY CASTRO AND THE END OF APARTHEID | MATT PEPE THE PRESIDENT’S NEW JACKET | CHELLIS GLENDINNING FROM TERROR TO TORTURE | MICHAEL KEEFER INSIDE THE SAUSAGE FACTORY | BOB CORRIGAN UNCLE PENTAGON | FRIDA BERRIGAN ColdType ColdType WRITING WORTH READING ISSUE 93 ColdType WRITING WORTH READING ISSUE 94 WHEN IS TORTURE TORTURE? Get your FREE subscription WRITING WORTH READING ISSUE 95 to ColdType magazine MAL COL Just send an email to [email protected] M X and write subscribe in the Subject line WAS RIGHT

CHRIS HEDGES tells how America’s refusal to face the truth about GREED ESSAYS BY GEORGE MONBIOT ● MICHAEL MEACHER ● CONN HALLINAN empire has created the nightmare Malcolm X predicted 50 years ago ● DANNY KATCH ● PAUL BUCHHEIT ● DAVID EDWARDS ● BILL QUIGLEY 36 Remembering Danny Schechter Media. Hype. Dissected. ColdType has published the work of Danny Schechter for the past 12 years. Here are the first and final pieces that we presented to our readers

The First Column sonal problems. No doubt affected by the ton of bricks that fell on him yesterday when the May 12, 2003 newspaper of record devoted SEVEN THOU- SAND words to his disgrace and their shame, THE SHREDDING This is the latest in a growing round of OF MEDIA CREDIBILITY media scandals. Alex Jones, the director of a Harvard Center on the press and the author fficial journalism in America is still of a book on the Times, said on NBC that he reeling this morning as the mighty believes there are Blair-type scandals lurk- New York Times continues genuflect- ing in every major newspaper. It was not just Oing on the significance of its admis- Blair that has been disgraced but the so-called sion that it has been carrying all the fiction system of checks and balances in place in fit to print. Times watchers on the right are the news room, according to Bob Steele who ecstatic about the gray lady’s bloody news, teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute of Jour- the revelation that one of its reporters, Jayson nalism. Blair, had been making it up DIVERSITY IS NOT ISSUE, and phoning it in, freely bor- SAYS MANAGING EDITOR rowing from other media out- lets and not covering stories The New York Daily News that he was writing about. quotes managing editor Ger- ald Boyd on the race baiting RACE BAITING ON MSNBC that seems to be surfacing Don Imus this morning chor- (or lurking just beneath tled about the Times “Blair the surface.) “Boyd bristled Witch Project” although one when asked if Blair, who is of his gang of wide-guy aco- black, figured in a bid by the lytes couldn’t resist banging Times to diversify its mostly on the race card to blame it all white staff of national corre- on diversity gone bad, since spondents, saying, “It’s not Blair is black. The New York an issue about diversity, Post calls Blair the “Times The essays in Danny’s Media but about a reporter who trickster” and reports that he Diary for 2003 are at http:coldtype. had issues that allowed is now in the hospital with per- net/danny.html him to deceive.” Blair, who

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 37 apologized in a letter to Boyd and executive tion: “The newspaper organized it in the be- editor Howell Raines for a “lapse in journal- lief that the appropriate corrective for flawed istic integrity” and said he was “seeking ap- journalism is better journalism – accurate propriate counseling,” did not return a call to journalism.” his cell phone yesterday. Oh really? “He vacated his last registered address – an In an editor’s note the paper does a mea apartment in Brooklyn – several months ago, culpa of historic proportions, regretting its leaving behind what was described as struc- failure to detect the “journalistic deceptions” tural damage and extensive filth that cost sev- earlier and apologized to its readers, to those eral thousand dollars to undo.” Clearly, Blair whose work was “purloined” and to all con- had problems. Painful. scientious journalists whose professional trust has been betrayed by this episode. MEA MEA CULPAS Catch your breath, Danny. I can’t believe I IN all of my years as a NY Times reader and am reading this. I would like to think of my- media watcher, I have never seen the news- self as conscientious, but I must say there is paper of record go into such overdrive to pro- something smarmy about this since it does test its innocence and “correct” the errors of not reveal what the newspaper’s “separate in- a single journalist. Four and half pages were ternal” inquiry has found. (This suggest that devoted to Times reputation management in some heads will roll.) For years scholars of Sunday’s paper, which devoted a two-column every description and leaning have been cri- front page story, an editor’s notes and acres tiquing Times coverage. Noam Chomsky has of print on the inside to tracking down and packed books with long lists of well footnoted exposing the lies of young Jayson Blair, 27, errors and omissions. Tuli Kupferberg, the who is said to have filed misleading reports 36 ex-Fug, once published an imaginary Editor’s times (out of 76 stories) since getting national Note that apologized for the Times support reporting assignments, for the cold war and American interventions Editors apparently urged that he be fired, for decades. but nothing was done. “It’s Janet Cooke all This apology is like Al Capone getting bust- over again,” said my downstairs neighbor” ed for not filing taxes. It is a misdemeanor in who compared this to the incident at the a sea of journalistic felonies. For more on the Washington Post where another young jour- Times, see Daniel Forbes story on Mediachan- nalist who happened to be black was exposed nel about Times reporter Judith Miller who, for filing contrived or invented stories. He he reports, violated other Times guidelines [Blair] was one of those “affirmative action” limiting reporters involvement in groups lob- hires, my neighbor sneered. And so race raises bying on issues being covered. See: “Pulitzer its ugly head close to home. Prize-Winning Reporter Crosses The New York Why did the Times go so over the top beat- Times’ Line of ‘Strict Neutrality.’” ing its breast on this story? Embarrassment, MEDIA SYSTEM STRAINED no doubt, especially since Editor Howell Raines was recently being targeted by the NY The media system today is showing signs of Post and Fox News Channel for reports critical the institutionalized corruption now associ- of the war. Also, perhaps because the mighty ated with Wall Street firms. Last week CNN’s media elite was exposed in this instance by Aaron Brown and Walter Cronkite pulled out the City Paper, a lowly alternative paper in of deals that would have put them in the po- Washington. sition of endorsing pharmaceutical goods. Says the Times about its massive investiga- Cronkite’s office said he never did endorse-

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ments, so I don’t want to tarnish him in any There is not one of you who dares to write his way here, BUT none of this is helping. honest opinion, and if you did, you know be- fore hand it would never appear in print. CONCERN IN JAPAN ‘The business of journalists is to destroy AND, of course, the issue that others in the the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify, world see but that the American media has to fawn at the feet of the mammon and to sell yet to confront, the way in which virtually the his country and his race for the daily bread. whole media caved in and became an acces- You know it and I know and what folly this is sory to the Bush White House in its war ion – toasting an independent press. We are tools Iraq. This point was driven home to me today and vassals of rich men behind the scenes; we by a letter from a journalist at NHK in Japan, are the marionettes. They pull the strings and which is making a film on this – even if most we dance. Our time, our talent, our capacities US media institutions just move on. She raises are all property of these men. We are intellec- precisely the types of questions that are being tual prostitutes.” avoided: OTHER DEANS AT WORK “Today, I am writing to ask if you are plan- ning any research, seminar, public discussion, And so was born the idea of media whores, or discussions with reporters or TV produc- This is strong stuff. As for the role of Deans, ers regarding how the US media covered the Dan Fost of the San Francisco Chronicle re- war in Iraq. Especially, concentrating on the ports: “The deans of the nation’s journalism subject of fairness in the reports. NHK is plan- schools, led by Orville Schell of UC Berkeley, ning to produce a program on this subject and are coming together in an effort to improve would like to see how the US media itself is the quality of television news. evaluating the war coverage in Iraq. “The effort, launched last year, is getting We would also like to see if the reporters some traction, as the Carnegie Corp. of New or producers are beginning to ask more tough York – a major foundation that helped launch questions like, “Was this war necessary?” the Public Broadcasting System in 1967 – said “Was it legal for US to attack Iraq without in- it will consider helping. ternational support?” “The bitter truth is most Americans get most of what they know about the world from SWINTON’S SPEECH RECALLED broadcast news,” Schell said. “Whatever you Final thought. I have been skimming Uri think of broadcast or cable news, you’d have Dowbenkos’ book called Bushwhacked: Inside to say it’s not as good as it could be.” stories of True Conspiracy, published by con- WHERE O WHERE CAN THE WEAPONS BE? spiracy digest. Usually I avoid tracts like this but there was at least one relevant quote to Now back to the hunt, the hunt for Weapons pass on that relates to the New York Times, the of Mass Destruction, the issue that consumed subject of so much hand wringing today. hours and days of TV speculation and govern- The remarks are attributed to John Swin- ment assurances. Barton Gellman reported in ton, former Chief of Staff for the Times, and the Washington Post yesterday: “The group di- according to this book, once dubbed “the dean recting all known U.S. search efforts for weap- of his profession.” He made these remarks be- ons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding fore the New York Press Club early in the last down operations without finding proof that century. (Perhaps a reader has more details.) President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine “There is no such thing as an independent stocks of outlawed arms, according to partici- press in America. You know it and I know it. pant.”

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 39

“Leaders of Task Force 75’s diverse staff – ity that just preceded the war – was already biologists, chemists, arms treaty enforcers, teetering at the edge of catastrophic. Where nuclear operators, computer and document to start? The phone system still doesn’t work; experts, and special forces troops – arrived electricity isn’t yet up; people are out of work; with high hopes of early success. They said potable water is often not available; stipends they expected to find what Secretary of State are not being paid; a population which relied Colin L. Powell described at the U.N. Security heavily on state aid simply to get through the Council on Feb. 5 – hundreds of tons of biolog- day has been largely abandoned; the only or- ical and chemical agents, missiles and rockets ganized forces in parts of the country seem to deliver the agents, and evidence of an on- to be the Shia clergy; the Americans were so going program to build a nuclear bomb. woefully unprepared for this occupation that, “Scores of fruitless missions broke that in many cases, they can hardly communicate confidence, many task force members said in with the Iraqis; hostility is widespread; small interviews. “ numbers of American troops are dying – and that’s just a beginning.” OBSERVER: “A PLATFORM OF LIES?” CENSORSHIP THREATENS Over in England Paul Harris Martin Bright and Ed Helmore ask in the Observer, “Where are AS the US tries to replace Iraqi broadcasting Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction? Was with its own shows, there is already talk of the war fought on a platform of lies? Taji was censoring a TV station in the new Iraq. US the only specific location singled out by Secre- Lieutenant General Petraeus says he doesn’t tary of State Colin Powell in his address to the like the content and is considering doing UN when he argued that evidence compiled something about it. “Yes, what we are look- by US intelligence proved the existence of an ing at is censorship, but you can censor illegal weapons programme. ‘This is one of 65 something that is intended to inflame pas- such facilities in Iraq,’ Powell said. ‘We know sions.” l this one has housed chemical weapons.’ “But the Observer has learnt that Taji has drawn a blank. US sources say no such weap- The Final Column ons were found when a search party scoured the base in late April. By then it had already January, 2015 been looted by local villagers. If Taji ever had any secrets, they are long gone. That is bad THE Ghosts news for Britain and the United States. The of vietnaM pressure is building to find Saddam’s hidden arsenal and time is running out. t’s been nearly 40 years since what the A major shakeup is occurring in US occu- American media called the “Fall of Saigon” pation plans. Jay Garner the general in plain and the Vietnamese referred to as the “Lib- clothes is out; Mr. Bremer, the counter-terror- Ieration”. I saw it then as the “Fall of Wash- ism expert is in. And the country is festering. ington.” Tomdispatch notes, “Over a month after Sadd- The ghosts of Vietnam are back, thanks to am Hussein’s regime dissolved and his military two filmmakers with very different takes. The was either destroyed or simply dissolved, the first is Tiana of South Vietnamese origin, and simplest aspects of life under the American the second is Rory Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy’s occupation have not returned to anything like youngest daughter. “normal,” and normal – that is, the normal- Tiana is finishing a movie called “The

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General and Me”, on her unlikely conversa- Rory Kennedy for documenting a forgotten tions (for someone from a virulently anti- moment of American history, the chaotic days communist family) with North Vietnam’s in 1975 when the US raced to leave Saigon and legendary General Giap, aka the “Red Na- South Vietnam steps ahead of the advancing poleon,“ aka the man whose military doc- North Vietnamese Army. And the critics are trines defeated the French Army and later pumped up with pride at the stories Kennedy the Americans. has uncovered of brave and noble American Giap created the Vietnamese Army at Ho soldiers and a few anti-establishment Ameri- Chi Minh’s request, and without training be- can diplomats who helped evacuate many came a military genius. Tiana has two other South Vietnamese – by boat, plane, and heli- self-promoted US “geniuses” in her movie, copter – who presumably would be enslaved too: pathetic walk-ons by US General William or murdered by the Communist North Viet- Westmoreland and Defense Secretary Robert namese. MacNamara, who cannot conceal his con- Flag-waving whitewash tempt for her. Kennedy’s highly-hyped Last Days in Viet- What hardly anyone observed is that Ken- nam depicts the hurried evacuation of US sol- nedy, daughter of peacenik Robert Kennedy, diers and as many of their Vietnamese con- is offering a flag-waving whitewash of the war scripts in a long and bloody war that was lost in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese are char- almost from its earliest days. Rather than look acterized, with no exceptions, as Isis-like war- at the reasons for that loss, she has, with sup- riors murdering all their opposition on the port from HBO and PBS’s American Experi- way from Hanoi to Saigon. And, after entering ence series, tried to present a heroic picture of Saigon, annihilating those who oppose them Americans in their last days in Saigon, coping or sending their enemies to re-education with a mad ambassador and in some cases re- camps. belling against US policy. The South Vietnamese? This amazed me: there is not any mention of the much-doc- Divides of the times umented corruption of the various puppet These two films, all these years later, mirror governments, and of the South Vietnamese the cultural and political divides of the time. army as a coercive instrument of torture and One film, in effect, rationalises the war, por- killings. Each South Vietnamese ex-soldier, traying the American military as compassion- including a high-ranking officer, who is in- ate, while the other, for one of the first times, terviewed is allowed to tell his shiny story. offers the side that Americans never hear. There’s no blood attached to any of them. Even if her Uncle JFK did escalate the war, “This did not surprise me. In 1976, the an- despite his back and forth doubts, a member niversary of the American Revolution, I pub- of the Kennedy family is still treated as a cul- lished a small book featuring the views of tural icon in a culture that can’t remember Vietnam’s top military strategists including detail of what happened yesterday much less General Vo Nguyen Giap called How We Won forty years. Rory’s work has been acclaimed; The War. Tiana’s has not yet been seen. She calls this Surely, that story is historically more sig- forgetting deliberate, “NamNesia.” nificant than how we cut tail and ran. Gerald Perry writes in Arts Fuse: “The I wrote then: “The American press was mushy reviews of “Last Days in Vietnam” (a never much help in our efforts to find out 94% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating) are ex- more about those remarkable Vietnamese traordinarily similar. They praise filmmaker people who have now managed to out-orga-

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 41 nize, out fight, and defeat a succession of US who escalated the war with massive casual- backed regimes. When the US media did rec- ties, It offered no historical context or back- ognize the other side’s existence, they did so ground. with disdain, distortion and denigration…the It implied that all the people of Saigon US never came to terms the fact it was defend- would be butchered or imprisoned; that was ing a government which had no support and not the case. attempting to crush one that did.” It referenced escaping ships racing to Con- A group of LA-based film critics later wrote Son Island without mentioning that that Is- to PBS: “Rory Kennedy’s egregiously unbal- land off the coast of Saigon hosted, like Guan- anced, out-of-context, dubiously propagan- tanamo today, was a brutal prison camps distic “Last Days in Vietnam” is currently in filled with “tiger cages” where Vietnamese theatrical release, a production of the PBS opponents of the military regime were kept, series, An American Experience. We are ap- killed and tortured. palled by the extraordinarily one-sided na- Where are the anti-war voices? ture of Kennedy’s rewrite of history that only shows the US government’s and the Republic Perry asks: “Where in this documentary are of Vietnam’s side of the story, and never offers the anti-war voices of those who were Ameri- the points of view of the millions of Ameri- can soldiers in Vietnam and became disillu- cans who opposed the war and of those who sioned by the terrible things we did there? fought on the side of the National Liberation Who in this film speaks of our random bomb- Front and North Vietnam.” ing of North Vietnam? Of the massacre at My So much for “balance!” Lai? And for the CIA, where is mention of the The protest was all for nought. Public Tele- heinous tortures of South Vietnamese under vision retreated into its files of knee-jerk form CIA director William Colby? As for Kissinger, letters and responded to criticisms of one it’s madly frustrating to see his self-serving program with a defense that cited all the pro- rhetoric go completely unchallenged. Where grams they did, most decades old, while an- are you, Errol Morris, when needed? Instead, nouncing that a new multi-million dollar se- the world’s number one war criminal at large ries on Vietnam by Ken Burns is in the works. (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile, etc.) is a Typical! They avoided details like these: welcome and honored guest to this documen- Rory focused on the story of efforts to save tary commissioned by PBS’s American Expe- allied officers and their families in a Saigon rience.” (“Arvin”) Army known for its corruption and And, on and on. brutality. Its been 40 years. What have we learned? It citied atrocities allegedly committed by The Obama Administration, aided by its Sec- the Communists like the “Hue Massacre,” an retary of State, a Vietnamese speaker no less, event thoroughly investigated and exposed as named John Kerry, once the leader of Vietnam false by US Vietnam Scholar Gareth Porter. Veterans Against the War, had turned into an It citied violations of the Paris Peace agree- apologist for the American role in the war, ment by the North without mentioning the and an arms salesman to Vietnam which fears many more egregious and concealed viola- the Chinese today more than the Americans. tions by the US-backed South Vietnamese Whose voice should we listen to? Rory forces. Kennedy with her slick well funded mocku- It showed the madness and mania of US mentary of history or Tiana who is struggling Ambassador Graham Martin as if he was an to bring Vietnamese voices and a deliberately exception to a history of earlier US officials buried history to life? l

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 42 Remembering Danny Schechter A country we both call our second home In the Foreword to Danny’s book, When South Africa Called, We Answered, Tony Sutton speaks of shared experiences and a shared love for a country they both adopted

ook back at the major events in South Af- not to kill people, but to make everyone aware rica during the final decades of the apart- that the ANC, although banned and exiled, was heid era and you’ll keep coming across still a key part of the struggle. Lthe name of Danny Schechter – organiz- “Scared shitless,” he set off his bomb and ing, cajoling, pulling strings, and reporting the then decided, on impulse, to attend the funeral truth that an evil regime would have preferred of Nobel Prize-winner Albert Luthuli in Natal, to hide from an often ignorant and uncompre- hitching a lift to the grave site, then strolling hending outside world. nonchalantly through a frightening crowd His fight began in the sixties when, as a stu- of stoked-up ANC militants surrounded by a dent at the London School of Economics, he phalanx of equally-fearsome and notoriously became a close friend of three of the South Afri- trigger-happy white policemen. cans at the heart of the ANC in exile: Ruth First, I first heard of Schechter’s exploits at a party later assassinated by the bomb of an Apartheid thrown by a gang of bemused and boozed-up agent; her husband, Joe Slovo, considered the foreign correspondents nine years later, weeks revolutionary group’s intellectual brain; and after the Soweto students riots of 1976. I’d been Ronnie Kasrils, a leader a journalist in Johannesburg for a year, and of Umkhonto we Sizwe editor of , the renowned magazine aimed >em Drum _dj[hdWj_edWb (MK), the armed under- at black readers, for just three months, when ieb_ZWh_jo ^[bf[Z ground and, later, Min- the revolution began. My only photographer jeffb[ M^[d WfWhj^[_Z ister of Intelligence in had been detained on bomb charges (he was Iekj^7\h_YW the ANC’s second post- released a year later uncharged), my staff was 9Wbb[Z"M[ Apartheid government harassed by cops and security police wherever under Thabo Mbeki. they tried to work, and the first issue of Drum 7dim[h[Z Schechter became that I edited after the riots was declared so dan- :7DDO I9>;9>J;H one of the organization’s gerous that the government made it an offence 7kj^ehe\CWZ_XW 7jeP0J^[CWdo

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Coffee with Mandela? Danny came to visit us at our home just outside Toronto a few years back. Tony and I had promised to entertain him by showing off the local sights over the weekend. But he was suffering from gout so we spent the time looking around secondhand bookstores, drinking lots of wine, and watching the movies that he ‘just happened to have” in his bag. Halfway through one of his Nelson Mandela tributes, I went into the kitchen to make coffee. Danny shufled after me. “But you’re missing the movie!” he declared, ushering me back towards the viewing room, “Coffee can wait!” It did. So did dinner! – Julia Sutton again for another 25 years, although I was a bedded: Weapons of Mass Deception”, a year witness to the consternation caused by a cam- later. Never again, I vowed, after the massive paign, fronted by Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist task of sorting out an unedited manuscript Little Steven Van Zandt, to shame musicians and a never-ending set of rewrites on endless into boycotting the Sun City casino/hotel com- page proofs. Then, a year later, another phone plex in Bophuthatswana, one of South Africa’s call: Would I help him do another book, this racial homelands, where many top US enter- time on the financial crisis which later led to tainers including Frank Sinatra and Linda Ron- the 2008 stock market crash. “No re-writing, stadt had appeared. The music boycott was a no piles of page proofs. Promise.” Of course, morale-shattering blow to the Afrikaner gov- I agreed. Now, what was that about re-writes? ernment, which had banked on using showbiz Hmm, some things don’t change, but friend- to maintain the semblance of a normal society ship survives all adversity. When South Africa as it battled to control dissent, particularly Called, We Answered is the seventh book we’ve from the younger generation who, unlike their worked on together – we’re partners. Danny parents, realised that the maintenance of the provides the words. I sort them out. He does a status quo was both unattainable and undesir- bit of editing, I do a lot of moaning. able. Schechter, I learned years later, was the This is my favourite of his books. It’s more per- prime mover of the Sun City campaign. After sonal, full of shared acquaintances, similar mem- that, he launched the TV program South Africa ories, and experiences of a country and continent Now, which worked tirelessly to show Ameri- that, despite their many faults, are etched deep cans a picture of apartheid ignored by their into our hearts. Read it and you will understand mainstream TV stations, after deciding that, as our affection for South Africa, a troubled land we a journalist, he ought to do something to fight both call our second home. l the media war in his own “field.” Schechter and I next crossed paths a dozen Tony Sutton is the editor of coldtype years ago when, now resident in Canada, I be- magazine at www.coldtype.net - ColdType gan to use his News Dissector columns on my has produced and published seven of web site, ColdType.net. We became partners in Schechter’s books, all available free of charge publishing when I produced his book, “Em- at www.coldtype.net/SchechterBooks.html

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 44 Remembering Danny Schechter Memory matters Danny Schechter shares his feelings about the importance of a ‘people’s’ history as an effective counterbalance to ‘official’ history in this introduction to his book,Dissecting The News & Lighting The Fuse

s he aged, Nelson Mandela turned on funding or university support. The state his principal foundation into a Cen- of Georgia just announced that is cutting the ter of Memory, not only to share the staff that maintains its archive, while in many A achievements of his phenomenal life states and cities, funding for public libraries but also to keep the story of the South African is disappearing. Few of these places still have freedom struggle alive for new generations. bookstores, with publishers increasingly rely- Many, in just 20 years, had forgotten, or never ing on on-line sales. In some towns, newspa- learned about its sacrifices. pers face extinction and Local TV news may Memory is not just the preserve of the be next. iconic and important, but something that all Already, the media outlets that most of us of us lose with the passage of time, especially rely on minimize context and background in because we live in societies oriented towards reporting, often recycling stenographic ac- living in the present, in the here and the now, counts missing in interpretation. Even as we with little sense of a collective past beyond have more technology than ever to connect what most of us learn in school and then us with a changing world, it tends to be used promptly forget. more for entertainment than information. The In Uganda, women facing an most popular websites are the early death from AIDS, or dis- best-marketed ones. The superfi- eases of poverty, came up with DISSECTING cial still trumps the substantive. the idea of creating “memory THE NEWS A recent study of Monterey, boxes” to collect photos, heir- & LIGHTING California, showed how what we looms, and family histories to remember is often influenced by share with the children who THE FUSE the powers that be. John Herbst DISPATCHES will survive them. The boxes FROM THE wrote, “many people will find quickly became a popular way MEDIA WAR the elements of the Monterey ex- to pass on their history, values, DANNY perience familiar: a history rep- and reminiscences to the next SCHECHTER resented by upper class homes; The News Dissector 1 generation. socially elite governing boards In more “developed” societ- and societies; outdated and non- ies, we have vast professional This book may be down- inclusive interpretive exhibits; archives to collect and preserve loaded, free of charge, from the tour guide who is a local his- documents and artifacts, even ColdType at http://coldtype. tory ‘gatekeeper;’ emphasis on though many are dependent net/SchechterBooks.html decorative arts and furnishings

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Proud moments: The arrival of a new daughter, Sarah; and the publication of a new book.

on a historic house tour; the lack of emphasis family history as well. As the child of working on industrial history; the commercial exploita- class parents with an immigrant background, tion of adaptively used industrial buildings.” I grew up in a culture that worshipped great This is the conflict the late Howard Zinn writers and a history of labor struggles. addressed years ago in his writing on the ten- I was introduced early on to a rich history sion between official history and “people’s his- replete with leaders who battled for social jus- tory.” It surfaces time and time again, when we tice. That shaped my own orientation. Later, think about whom we remember, and what to my immersion in the social movements of my remember. time – student activism, civil rights, the anti- There is a personal component in this war, and anti-apartheid battles brought me conflict for me as a long time social activist, into contact with well-known activists and im- journalist, filmmaker, and sometime trouble- portant leaders. maker. As a storyteller and journalist, I have In this book, you will find an essay on a often used my own experiences as a prism to “secret” I have kept since the 60’s, my small explore the past. As my mom, the poet Ruth role in the underground inside South Africa Lisa Schechter quipped, “He knows what it is that assisted the armed struggle, that decades because he was there when it was.” later, helped liberate that country. I helped or- History is still being made and remade and ganize unions and rent strikes. I marched in I am hardly the only one with tales to tell. many protests in New York and Washington. As a relatively experienced observer who I taught in freedom schools and reported on has lived through decades of tumultuous demonstrations. I wrote for and then edited a change and traveled to some 70 countries, I high school newspaper and college magazine. have developed my own reporting style and In my twenties, I began traveling the world framework for analysis that informs my writing witnessing South African apartheid in its dark- and media work. It is grounded in a personal est days and then the protests that rocked Lon-

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 46 Remembering Danny Schechter

don, Berlin, and Paris in the late 60’s. I came cupy Wall Street, a report on the contemporary back to America to pursue a career in journal- fight for economic justice. ism ending up as a News Dissector and the This book is #15, probably the last one be- “News Dissector” at rock and roll radio, local cause it became clear that while I had the en- TV news, talk programs, CNN, ABC News and ergy to write and churn them out, I didn’t have later my own production company, Globalvi- the wherewithal or connections to get them sion, where my colleagues and I made TV se- distributed as widely as I would have liked. I ries and many documentaries. In my case, six would like to think that it is not due to their were with Nelson Mandela. quality. I realized that there was a media war un- It may be that all these multimedia inter- derway over what to report and how to do it. ests, flitting from blogging, to movie making, I realized that media omission was as bad as all my globetrotting, and a blend of activism commission in the slanting of news. What we and journalism ensured that I had no one don’t know is often more important than what “field” to be associated with or remembered we think we do. Hence, my calling this collec- for. It seems axiomatic that to develop a public tion, “Dispatches” from an ongoing conflict. profile, you have to do “one thing well.” That In my own work, I had gone from being an advice never fit well with my more hyperactive outsider to an insider, and then an outsider personality. We live in the age of the brand, and again, always independent in spirit and critical among the many who compete for attention in in outlook. I went from the underground press the highly commercialized “media space,” the to the mainstream media, from print to radio notion of a “News Dissector” may be regarded and TV, and back to print. Today I am often more as a catchy phrase, but not for a serious on the air around the world, commenting for body of work, despite an Emmy and other me- BBC, Al Jazeera, Press TV, Russia Today, Saudi dia awards. Arabia TV, and even Austrian radio, but rarely, A media careerist might see me as my own if ever, for the networks I used to work for. I worst enemy for trying to do too many projects do appear weekly on Reverend Jesse Jackson’s and too quickly. It is a criticism I hear frequent- Keep Hope Alive Radio show, and contribute to ly and there is some truth to it. We are told that websites worldwide. people who act as their own lawyers “have a As the digital age dawned, I went online in fool for a client,” so the writer and filmmaker 1986 and never came back. I was part of teams who tries to do his own PR invites charges of that launched various websites, and have writ- being self-promotional, and then, can be ig- ten a daily blog for almost 12 years. nored. However, I don’t feel ignored. I have I wrote my first book on what it was like to been blessed by being associated with teams work in the trenches of mainstream media in of colleagues who work with me, put up with 1997. It was called The More You Watch the Less me, and encourage my pursuits. I am proud of You Know. Afterwards, I seem to have writ- what I have accomplished and I am hardly the ten a new one every year for a small follow- only dissenter and critic whose work is ignored ing, often – alas – poorly promoted by small by the guardians of the status quo. independent publishers. They tried, but the What a long and sometimes strange trip big houses get more attention for their books it has been and continues to be. I am always because they have advertising budgets that dancing on the edge of the contradictions, smaller imprints lack. I have written about somehow managing to find the funding and media, war, politics and activism. My last two audiences to keep going. I can still drop names books are, Blogothon, a collection of some of with the best of them, but none of it matters my online work, and Occupy: Dissecting Oc- when you are working in what people on the

ColdType | www.coldtype.net Remembering Danny Schechter 47 inside consider the “wilderness,” a place re- War along with a film exposing the role of served for marginalized voices and gadflies. our own TV industry as propagandists called How I hate that putdown! WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception. At points, I have dipped my fingers in many oceans, I have been widely published, and at other traveled up the Yangtze and down the Ho Chi points ignored, or spied upon by the CIA and Minh trail. I organized rent strikes in Harlem FBI. I know because I have seen my files. In and taught at a civil rights Freedom School in one of my most wannabe revolutionary mo- Mississippi. I have been underground in the ments, one of their informants praised me as secret war against apartheid and over ground likeable if “funky” for wearing my hair in the up on the mountaintop with the economic “bouffant style of a woman.” So, even as I saw elite in Davos, Switzerland. I traveled with the myself as a feared militant, they saw me as a Dalai Lama, marched with Martin Luther King, teddy bear. Some activists even considered me rallied with SDS, dined with Malcolm X, met an agent because I knew too much about the Jean-Paul Sartre, connected with Fela, Amilcar covert world, or because of the paranoia and Cabral, Oliver Tambo, and Samora Machel in suspicion that festers in the left political cul- Africa. Visited the home of Patrice Lumumba ture. in Kinshasa, and more recently, ran with Oc- Smile. cupy Wall Street on, where else, Wall Street. I I know of only a few friends, comrades, and also met Yasser Arafat, Le Duc Tho, and later, colleagues who have been as immersed, and yuck, Henry Kissinger and Spiro T. Agnew. learned so much, in the course of so many ad- I yippied with Abbie Hoffman, helped pro- ventures, doing so many things, going so many duce the all-star Sun City anti-apartheid album places, over so many decades, from the 1940’s with Little Steven, Bruce Springsteen, Bono through 2012 and still counting. and Miles Davis et al. Profiled Tina Turner This book and my earlier work is one way and Bob Dylan, did one of the first national of giving back, sharing what I care about and TV reports on hip-hop, visited John and Yoko hoping you will care too. at home, shook hands with Jimmy Carter, Bill Like so many of those comrades, I learned Clinton, Teddy Kennedy and Tip O’Neil, and humility in the course of overreaching or mov- had lunch with George Soros. I have been more ing too fast. I am not proud of making the mis- fulfilled by what I have been able to produce, takes I’ve made, or, at points, exercising bad than by connecting briefly with the “good and judgment, depending on the wrong people, the great.” which often led to avoidable unhappiness. Not I have been to many political conferences, everything I attempted was successful, and I media conferences and TV award ceremonies. have lost friends by disappointing them, and I have been to China and many Chinatowns. even attracted some enemies, who for their Sometimes I felt like Woody Allen’s Zelig. own reasons and delusions consider me the I ike to think my investigations were devil incarnate. I regret not always being there ahead of their time, including a film warning enough for my daughter, and putting too much of the financial crisis in 2006 and another time and energy into work and not enough explaining why it was a crime story, not just into family. I haven’t always lived a balanced an economic miscalculation. I did a film ex- life, maybe because I don’t know how. posing election fraud in 2000, another call- In the end, you, the reader, will have to ing for tolerance in the aftermath of 9/11, and determine if this work is informative, insight- yet another, explaining how Barack Obama ful, or worth reading and passing on. As that won in 2008. cynically misused slogan says, “I report, you I wrote the first book published on the Iraq decide.” l

www.coldtype.net | April 2015 | ColdType 48 Remembering Danny Schechter

Journalist, Filmmaker, Author, Activist, Father, Brother, Friend, Troublemaker

Danny always made his family smile. A Schechter Family Reunion at his New York loft. December 2014.

One of the final photographs ofD anny, taken in his apartment by health adviser Jessica Zambelli.

ColdType | www.coldtype.net